1 62 THE SALMON 



legitimate object, the authorities were unable to 

 condemn it as an implement of poaching, and it had 

 to be returned to its owner. He was fined rather 

 heavily more than once ; but a single night's success, 

 unfortunately, goes a long way towards providing the 

 means of paying the legal penalties inflicted, and I 

 hardly think the authorities are sufficiently severe on 

 professional and systematic river marauders. I was 

 rather amused at the description of his experience 

 given me by a keeper in the Border country the other 

 day. The poachers he had caught had, in his 

 opinion, got off too lightly, until one night he came 

 upon a man burning the water on his beat, who after 

 a struggle was rescued by a second, who put my 

 informant into the river. Far from being annoyed, 

 he said to them, ' Now I know your faces, and I have 

 got a good case against you.' What amused me 

 most in his description was his threat to the fiscal. 

 ' I told him that if he did not imprison them this 

 time, / ivoidd never bring a case before him again.'' 

 Whether in consequence of this awful threat, or on 

 the merits of the case, his assailants on the occasion 

 referred to got three months' imprisonment. 



Otters and cross-lines with a number of flies and 

 minnows are objectionable, not only for the destruction 

 they cause but for the number of fish they prick and 



