178 APPENDIX. 



be applied will be the re-stocking of rivers which 

 have been much exhausted, or those in which the 

 breed of salmon has become altogether extinct. 

 There are many small rivers in Ireland so circum- 

 stanced, which might be re-stocked, and many beau- 

 tiful rivers in England, particularly in Devonshire 

 and Cornwall, into wliich a new breed of salmon 

 could be introduced with certainty and effect. The 

 stock of salmon in all the Irish and Scotch rivers is 

 declining ; in the smaller rivers, since the invention 

 and use of improved modes of capture, the decrease 

 has been rapid and alarming. The large rivers, 

 such as the Tay, in Scotland ; and the Shannon, the 

 Erne, the Moy, Foyle, Suir, Nore, Barrow, in Ire- 

 land, may hold on much longer, and maintain consi- 

 derable supplies, but the time has undoubtedly ar- 

 rived when our best efforts should be directed to im- 

 prove our fisheries by methods of modern industry, 

 and those adventitious aids which the ingenuity of 

 tlie age supplies. 



We would, if possible, avoid any theoretical views 

 upon this subject, but there seems upon the whole to 

 be no reason to doubt that if a sufficient number of 

 brood salmon be allowed to pass into a small stream, 

 and be there left to tlieir own operations, protecting 

 them merely, and guarding them against outward 

 injury, or casual accident — or, if we adopt the me- 

 thods above detailed, of exuding the spawn by pres- 

 sure, and depositing it in boxes, or in artificial beds 

 in the manner described, there appears to be, we 



