32 THE SALMON FISHERIES. 
- 
is equally true that these legislative enactments were not 
always enforced, and a fixed engine in Scotland was quite 
as deadly an instrument as a fixed engine in England. A 
Select Committee of the House of Commons appointed in 
1836 to inquire into the Scotch salmon fisheries reported 
that the provision of a weekly close time, or “ Saturday’s 
slap,” had “from an early period formed part of the laws 
of Scotland, regarding salmon fishings, but certain novel 
modes of fishing not in rivers, but upon the sea-coast and 
near the mouths of rivers, having been recently introduced, 
the regulation has been evaded or disregarded.” . The 
amendments of the Scotch Salmon Laws which have taken 
place since the date of this report have resulted in the more 
strict enforcement of the law, and as a consequence the 
fisheries have improved. There is, therefore, nothing 
essentially and radically wrong in the use, under proper 
restrictions, of fixed engines, the abuse, as_ distinguished 
from the reasonable use, of which is, however, to be most 
carefully guarded against. 
Turning now to the employment of other engines, such 
as movable nets, we have seen that, in any case, they are 
not open to the objections which may be urged against 
fixed engines, but they are equally liable to abuse in other 
respects. The employment ofa series of nets reaching right 
across the whole width of a river may effectually bar the 
progress of the fish. The use of a mesh so small as to 
capture immature fish will be equally detrimental in 
another way ; for if all the chickens are caught, no hens 
can be reared and no eggs laid. The advantage of 
stopping the use of nets at short intervals, to give a fair 
proportion of the fish a free passage up-stream, is as great 
in the case of movable nets as of fixed engines. All these 
points have received the attention of the Legislature. In 
