SALMON LEGISLATION. 153 



fish gets out of edible condition and into the spawning 

 condition, the more disinclined and unlikely is he to rise 

 to a fly. This arises from two causes : the fish, carrying 

 developed roe or milt, get heavy in body and lethargic 

 in mind ; and as their condition implies some amount 

 of residence in fresh water and experience of the wiles 

 and cruelty of men, they have become afflicted with 

 excessive caution, amounting, in truth, to contemptible 

 cowardice. A river is often swarming for weeks with 

 brown or gravid fish, whilst the angler toils day after day 

 and catches nothing ; and every observant angler knows 

 that, if he sees ten brown fish and one white or silvery 

 one disporting themselves in a " cast," he has much more 

 chance of enticing the single new-comer than any one 

 of the ten old stagers. This fact is recognised in the 

 popular name given to the discoloured fish in many dis- 

 tricts both of Scotland and Ireland ; " old soldiers" they 

 are significantly called, partly on account of the redness 

 of their coats, but not less on account of their great skill 

 in foraging, and otherwise taking care of themselves. 



Finally and chiefly, any additional number of fish 

 killed by the legitimate rod-fisher, during the extended 

 or extra portion of his season, does not amount to two or 

 three per cent, of the number that his and his watchers' 

 presence on the river saves from the poacher, who takes 

 the worst- conditioned fish by the most destructive in- 

 struments. 



It was, then, in 1857 that the first successful attempt 

 at reform was made, and it was made in a very mild 

 form, by a Bill promoted by the majority of the Tweed 



