132 THE SALMON. 



novel mode of fishing operates powerfully as a transfer 

 of fishing property ; but for the present purpose what is 

 required to be noted is, that it causes a great increase of 

 fishing, which tends to produce, and has long ago pro- 

 duced, a great decrease of fish. What these new or 

 additional fisheries kill, or rather did kill before they 

 succeeded in half eating up themselves as well as their 

 neighbours, was not merely the fish which the older 

 fisheries lost, but all these and for some time a great 

 many besides. These nets were a clear addition to the 

 means of destruction ; and while they left fewer fish 

 to be destroyed by the formerly existing means, they 

 left also fewer to live for the purpose of multiplying and 

 replenishing the waters. 



There is another mode besides over-killing in which 

 fixed engines work evil, of which we have said but little, 

 not because it is unimportant, but because it does not 

 admit of positive evidence. We can count how many 

 fish they kill, but we cannot see how many they frighten 

 back and out, to become the prey of seals and porpoises. 

 " These engines," said the English Commissioners of In- 

 quiry, " are baneful to the fisheries, not only on account 

 of the number of fish which they destroy, but also because 

 they scare and drive them away to sea, when they come 

 in shoals seeking the rivers, thereby exposing them to be 

 injured or destroyed in a variety of ways." The fact 

 here set forth is recognised in all the old legislation, 

 which prohibits fixtures in the rivers and estuaries, on 

 account not so much of their success in capturing, as of 

 their effect in deterring and frightening ; any " white 

 object," though incapable of anything but scaring, being 



