HAI-. v.J SALMON -POACHERS. 203 



machinery its nets, guns, and other implements. There are 

 men who earn large wages at this illicit work, who take to 

 "the birds" in autumn and the fish in winter with the utmost 

 regularity ; and there are middlemen and others who encourage 

 them and aid them in disposing of the stolen goods. A few 

 men will band themselves together, and in the course of a 

 night or two sweep fish from off the spawning-beds which are 

 totally unfit for human food. There is a ready market always 

 to be found even for spawning fish. Few of my readers can 

 have any idea of the immense number of salmon which are 

 destroyed by this cause, arid at the very time when they are 

 at their greatest value, intent on the propagation of their 

 kind. Indeed, on the very spawning-bed itself, the " deadly 

 leister" is hurled with unerring aim and mighty force ; and 

 the slain fish, safely hidden in the poacher's bag, is carried off 

 to be kippered and sold for the English market. A party 

 will start at nightfall, and, dividing into two companies, 

 sweep the Tweed with a net from shore to shore, and capture 

 everything of the salmon kind that comes within reach. The 

 takes upon such occasions average from ten to forty fish. 

 The first night upon which my informant a weaver went 

 out, the result was seventeen large fish, three of which 

 weighed ninety pounds. Upon the second occasion the take 

 was much larger, thirty-eight salmon of a smaller size being 

 the reward of their iniquity, weighing in the aggregate four 

 hundred and forty pounds, and producing in cash 8 sterling, 

 divided among eleven people. These stolen fish pass through 

 numerous hands. A person comes at a given time and takes 

 away the spoil ; all that the actual poacher obtains as his 

 share is a few pence per pound weight. They are bought 

 from the thieves by middlemen, who again dispose of them 

 to certain salesmen each party, of course, obtaining a profit. 

 In former times, as at present, there were more ways of 

 killing a salmon than by angling for it. Parties used to be 



