188 THE SALMON. 



net," was set slack between two poles in some of those 

 parts of the sands across which fish were likely to take 

 their course, and so captured the fish by entanglement. 

 The third species, called " the raise-net," was also fixed 

 between poles or stakes, but rose from the bottom with 

 the rising tide, so letting the fish pass upwards into the 

 " lakes" or flats at the lower part of which these engines 

 were erected, and then fell with the ebbing tide, so en- 

 closing the fish, and capturing such of them as sought to 

 return downwards. It was apparently this last kind of 

 net to which Scott, in Redgauntlet, makes the Quaker 

 Geddes allude : " Nets which work by the ebb and flow 

 of the tide." It will be seen that all these three kinds of 

 nets were fitted only for the peculiar circumstances of 

 the Solway, where there are far-stretching flats, a strong- 

 tide, and a loose sand, which, raised by the rush of the 

 tide, discolours the water, so as to prevent the fish seeing 

 the obstruction. They differed entirely from what we 

 now call the stake-net, which puts across the path of the 

 fish an impassable wall, terminating in a labyrinth or 

 trap, where entrance is easy, and exit impossible. The 

 great difference indeed between these old Solway fixtures 

 and the new species is sufficiently proved by what hap- 

 pened when what may be called the real stake-net was 

 introduced into those regions. It was introduced at a 

 fishery near Annan in 1788 ; and, as we have already had 

 occasion to mention, in a few years it had almost eaten 

 up all its neighbours, and soon after was eaten up itself. 

 The same device was then resorted to in the Firth of 

 Tay ; but that district being under the Scotch law, 

 and being judicially declared an estuary, the attempt 





