RECENT RESEARCH UPON SALMON 245 
Now, important as such an auxiliary is to the sport of 
angling, it has far wider application than that. It affects the 
whole salmon-fishing industry. In Norway the physical and 
meteorological conditions are almost the reverse of those 
prevailing in this country, although the habits of salmon and 
their season of spawning are the same. In that country the 
rivers, fed by snow-fields and glaciers, run full throughout the 
summer ; salmon can enter them when they will. In winter, 
when salmon are spawning, the water supply is stopped by 
frost, and the rivers dwindle as under severe drought. In this 
country, on the contrary, our rivers are generally high in 
winter, but are liable to extreme depletion in spring and 
summer, when fish chiefly would run. The effect of a 
summer drought is to keep shoals of salmon moving up and 
down the estuary with the tides, waiting for a flood to carry 
them up. It is at such times that undue havoc is wrought 
among them by nets. Whole “runs” of fish are annihilated. 
All men of experience agree that, in order to maintain the 
salmon stock in any river, it is necessary that a fair proportion 
of every run of fish should escape the nets. It is with that 
view that the Legislature has enacted a weekly close-time ; but 
what is the use of such close-time if the river is barred by 
drought to the ascent of salmon? It merely means a heavier 
haul for the nets on Monday morning. Under an effective 
system of water-storage, sufficient water might be let down 
every week-end to allow the fish waiting in the tideway to run 
up before the nets set to work again on Monday morning. 
Short-sighted netsmen might grudge this interference with 
their harvest, but the more intelligent ones perceive that it 
means the prolongation and improvement of their industry. 
The syndicate which have spent vast sums in acquiring all the 
nets on the greater part of the Tay, and suppressing half of them, 
have derived such handsome profit from the other half that 
their investment has already proved to be a splendid one. 
They do not kill such a large proportion of running fish as 
