106 



THE SALMON. 



decreasing. But how are we to account for the fact, 

 that during the last ten years of the period the trouts 

 decreased more than a half on the average, and according 

 to the latest year, two-thirds ? We see no explanation 

 but in the inference that not only the fixed nets, which 

 took chiefly salmon, but also those within the river, 

 which took more trout than salmon, were fished with 

 an improvident mercilessness. 



Estimated by weight, it may be mentioned that, 

 compared with the earlier period, the falling off in the 

 annual produce of the Tweed fisheries, just previous 

 to the recent legislation, amounted to something like 

 200,000 pounds, as entirely and as needlessly lost as if 

 it had been thrown into the sea or upon the dunghill. 



To see at a glance the difference of symptoms in a 

 diseased river and in a healthy river, in a river greedily 

 fished and a river providently fished, compare the Table 

 regarding the Tweed, with the following, showing the 

 produce of the Duke of Eichmond's fisheries on the 

 Spey, in the years named : 



1851, 

 1852, 

 1853, 

 1854, 

 1855, 

 1856, 

 1857, 

 1858, 

 1859, 



It would not be of much practical value to enter on 

 comparisons between the Tweed tables and the Spey 



