RECENT RESEARCH UPON SALMON 245 



Now, important as such an auxiliary is to the sport of 

 angling, it has far wider application than that. It affects the 

 whole salmon-fishing industry. In Norway the physical and 

 meteorological conditions are almost the reverse of those 

 prevailing in this country, although the habits of salmon and 

 their season of spawning are the same. In that country the 

 rivers, fed by snow-fields and glaciers, run full throughout the 

 summer ; salmon can enter them when they will. In winter, 

 when salmon are spawning, the water supply is stopped by 

 frost, and the rivers dwindle as under severe drought. In this 

 country, on the contrary, our rivers are generally high in 

 winter, but are liable to extreme depletion in spring and 

 summer, when fish chiefly would run. The effect of a 

 summer drought is to keep shoals of salmon moving up and 

 down the estuary with the tides, waiting for a flood to carry 

 them up. It is at such times that undue havoc is wrought 

 among them by nets. Whole " runs " of fish are annihilated. 

 All men of experience agree that, in order to maintain the 

 salmon stock in any river, it is necessary that a fair proportion 

 of every run of fish should escape the nets. It is with that 

 view that the Legislature has enacted a weekly close-time ; but 

 what is the use of such close-time if the river is barred by 

 drought to the ascent of salmon ? It merely means a heavier 

 haul for the nets on Monday morning. Under an effective 

 system of water-storage, sufficient water might be let down 

 every week-end to allow the fish waiting in the tideway to run 

 up before the nets set to work again on Monday morning. 

 Short-sighted netsmen might grudge this interference with 

 their harvest, but the more intelligent ones perceive that it 

 means the prolongation and improvement of their industry. 

 The syndicate which have spent vast sums in acquiring all the 

 nets on the greater part of the Tay, and suppressing half of them , 

 have derived such handsome profit from the other half that 

 their investment has already proved to be a splendid one. 

 They do not kill such a large proportion of running fish as 



