160 THE SALMON. 



on at least this part of the question, has of late years 

 been conducted. On the Tweed, those fixed engines had 

 whatever claim or protection is derived from imme- 

 morial usage, and were abolished by means of a private 

 Bill ; a public and Government Bill, designed to abolish 

 throughout Scotland fixed engines of quite modern date, 

 and quite without legal recognition, was not accepted by 

 Parliament ; and while the Tweed Bill of 1857 abolished 

 ancient fixtures, the Tweed Bill of 1859 was not allowed 

 to abolish in the same district certain other fisheries 

 (stake and bag nets), which were and are much more 

 destructive than the stell-nets, and had not the pleas of 

 usage and legal recognition. 



Another change effected by the new Tweed Acts, 

 and subsequently imported into general Acts both for 

 England and Scotland, was the prohibition of the use 

 of the leister or spear. This was an old, and, especially 

 on the Tweed, a very popular sport ; but it was 

 butcherly and destructive, and by voluntarily surrender- 

 ing it, the upper proprietors gave another proof that 

 their object was not fish, but only fishing. Night- 

 leistering, with the glare of the pine-torches reflected 

 from cliff, and wood, and water, with the yells, the 

 laughter, arid the immersions, was doubtless in some 

 respects a fine sight and a most exciting sport ; but it 

 was slaughterous and wasteful, killing more fish in a few 

 minutes than would have sufficed for a season's sport, 

 and killing them, too, just when they were most useful 

 in the water and most useless out of it. It was no un- 

 common thing, on some of the upper fisheries of the 

 Tweed, to kill within an hour, on a February or Novem- 



