properly be compared only to tiie skill of a poacher, 

 who, if he were allowed to display his experience 

 and skill in the immediate neighbourhood of a pre- 

 serve, would not fail to succeed in taking a great 

 quantity of the game; and I presume, that although 

 he were to allege the great benefit which the public 

 derived from the regular quantity of game which 

 he could supply, he would scarcely escape the fate 

 his skill usually meets with. 



Another rather homely remark which I w 7 ould 

 venture to make (to the Stake-net Fishers) is this : 

 Why do you not display your skill nearer the Lon- 

 don market ; because it is the supplying that mar- 

 ket which is so desired ? Are there no other rivers 

 but the Tay, which would be found productive, if 

 fished in that way ; and no other coasts, but those 

 of Scotland, proper for stake nets ? The Author 

 says, in a very pithy .manner, (page ]), that he 

 shall " leave the Fisheries of England and Ireland 

 to those better acquainted with them." No doubt 

 he knows very well, that if the great stake-net 

 capitalists were to appear at the mouth of the 

 Severn or the Thames, with their wonderful con- 

 trivances, they would require rather stronger ar- 

 guments, than those used in his Pamphlet, to prove 

 the great benefit the public would derive from the 

 new mode of fishing. 



An unguarded reader of the Pamphlet before us, 

 might be led to conclude, that the proprietors of 

 the shores of friths and estuaries, and of the open 



