124 THE SALMON. 



salmon-nets, with very little regard to the neighbour- 

 hood or distance of a river. To take a single illustration, 

 we see in our mind's eye (but of course we speak of an 

 actual case) a line of coast running out into a bold pro- 

 montory, then trending inwards to form a bay five miles 

 indented. In the inmost corner of that bay stands a 

 productive stake-net fishery, although there is at the 

 place no run of fresh water which would afford passage 

 to a minnow, and no salmon river debouches within sixty 

 miles. Here (and the fact is one of a multitude) it is 

 proved that even in the absence of any contiguous river, 

 the salmon not only keep the shore, but follow its deep- 

 est and most sinuous indentations. The fact was tardily 

 and partially recognised by the Legislature in the Act 

 (7 and 8 Victoria, cap. 95) which prohibits any but the 

 proprietor of the fishery from taking salmon " in any 

 part of the sea within a mile of low-water mark, in 

 Scotland." This recognises the fact of the fish following 

 the shore, but leaves unrestrained the misdoings or (what 

 in this case is the same thing), the over-doings, of those 

 who have taken such merciless advantage of the privilege 

 they (we may say) accidentally possess. 



In proving the destructiveness of fixed nets, we shall 

 confine ourselves chiefly to two pieces of evidence, differ- 

 ing, as will be seen, in their character, but both leading 

 clearly to conviction. Owing to legal doubts as to the 

 precise nature of the localities in which standing-engines 

 were prohibited by the old Scotch Statutes, fixed nets 

 were erected in the Firth of the Tay in 1799, and, after 

 much litigation, were finally declared illegal in 1812. 

 The following figures being an abstract of returns for 



