150 THE SALMON. 



enemies of those on whose grounds they did breed, and 

 who had the eggs and the young at their mercy. 



It was the more easy and obvious to suggest that 

 there was serious error in the argument of the lower 

 proprietors, owing to the existence of an error some- 

 where having been made but too apparent by the 

 dismal results of the system which they tried to defend. 

 Legislation aside, the fish belongs to whoever can catch 

 him. A man, say at Galashiels or Innerleithen, who, 

 during close-time, saw twenty salmon lying in a stream 

 of which he was owner or tenant, had, but for the Act of 

 Parliament, as much right to them then as his brethren 

 below had at an earlier time of the year. Nature sent 

 them there then as much as it sent them to Berwick 

 in August. And if it had been said that there is a 

 law of nature against killing fish so conditioned and 

 employed, he would have replied that but for the all- 

 devouring activity of his brethren lower down, he might 

 have had fish in summer or autumn too ; and also that 

 the lower brethren did not consider themselves above 

 killing fish in much the same condition when they came 

 in their way. The law, therefore, which forbade him to 

 touch them, though a very wise or necessary law, was, 

 he saw, a law to provide fish for the people at Berwick, 

 and not for him, and therefore he looked upon it as a 

 law which he had no interest in maintaining or ob- 

 serving. Those at whose mercy the fish lie during by 

 far the greater and more critical periods of their fresh- 

 water sojourn their natural and only possible pro- 

 tectors were thus turned into their worst enemies. 

 They were, as Sir Walter Scott expressed it, made mere 



