9 



taining whether there were any suitable lakes in that frith, 

 upon which tide-nets might be erected. But they return* 

 ed, reporting to their friends that there was none. 



It turned out, however, that these lakes were not es- 

 sentially necessary for the successful prosecution of the 

 new mode of fishing. Accordingly, Mr. John Little, one 

 of the Solway fishers, and a gentleman of great ingenuity 

 and intelligence inother matters, having accidentally visit- 

 ed the Tay about the year 1797, resolved to try the ex- 

 periment in that frith, and before he left it, he took, for 

 himself and three brothers, a lease of the Salmon fisheries 

 on the estate of Seaside. 



A net, precisely similar to those on the Solway, having, 

 accordingly, been erected at Seaside, the success exceeded 

 the most sanguine expectations. Previous to this time, 

 there was, it may be said, no fishing at that station, the 

 width of the frith being there not less than two miles. 

 But now the produce was such as excited the astonishment 

 of the district, and occasioned the utmost alarm among 

 the proprietors in the upper parts of the river. 



This net had not, however, been long in operation be- 

 fore a material improvement was made in its construction. 

 The entrance to the inclosure of the net, as originally 

 used on the Solway, was shut by the action of the ebb- 

 tide. But it was observed at Seaside, that, for some time 

 after it had been thus shut, the fish continued to gambol 

 on the banks ; and that many might be caught, were the 

 net so constructed as still to admit them into the inclos- 

 ure. Instead, therefore, of the former entrance, which, 

 like a valve, opened and shut with the tide, the net was 

 now so constructed, as to leave the passage always open ; 

 but, with such a degree of intricacy in the chambers, or di- 

 visions in the body of the net with which it communicated, 

 that the fUh, after being led from one to another, found 



