158 THE SALMON. 



all engines of that class, its evils lay not only in what it 

 caught, but in what it stopped, doing even more indeed 

 in the way of obstruction than of destruction. Never- 

 theless, these engines had existed from time immemorial, 

 and it was a strong measure to propose their abolition by 

 means of a private Bill. It is true that the proposal was 

 accompanied by another, assented to only by a majority 

 of those concerned, and which, if the division into upper 

 and lower proprietors had been complete as to interests, 

 must have been reckoned as more than a quid pro quo. 

 The middle and upper proprietors themselves possessed 

 a species of fixed net, called a cairn-net. A cairn or 

 putt is, or rather was, a short pier run out two or three 

 yards into the river, and causing an eddy or " slack- 

 water/' into which fish travelling upwards are apt to 

 enter and rest, especially during the nights when the 

 river is in travelling condition ; and a cairn-net is or 

 was a short net fastened to the outer end of this pro- 

 jection, and then allowed to swing down with the stream, 

 so forming a barrier parallel between the eddy and the 

 main current, and having a good chance of intercepting 

 all fish that turned to pass outward from their resting- 

 place. Of these nets there were several hundreds upon 

 the Tweed ; they were increasable to any extent ; and on 

 many of the upper waters they killed a great many more 

 fish than were taken with the rod. All this the middle 

 and upper proprietors, or the majority of them, offered 

 to give up ; in other words, to give up perhaps one-half 

 of the fish they then killed. This proposal, of course, 

 put two powerful arguments into the hands of the upper 

 proprietors ; that they were applying to their own fixed 



