CHAP, v.] SIZE AND WEIGHT OF SALMON. 207 



Scottish rivers ; that salmon of thirty pounds and thirty-five 

 pounds weight were quite common ; and that the general run 

 of fish were in the aggregate many pounds heavier than those 

 of the present day. Mr. Anderson, the lessee of some of 

 the best salmon-fisheries on the Firth of Forth, a gentleman 

 who is master of his business, is of opinion that the average 

 weight of fish now is reduced to about sixteen pounds ; and 

 by the Tweed Tables, the average weight of those killed by the 

 net between July and September, though apparently on the 

 increase, in no month rises to fifteen pounds. How is it, then, 

 that we have no giants of the river in these days? The 

 answer, I think, is simple and convincing. Let us suppose, 

 for example, that the fish grows at the rate of five pounds per 

 annum : it would, therefore, take ten years to achieve a growth 

 of fifty pounds. Now it is needless to say that, in British 

 waters at any rate, we never either see or hear of a fish of that 

 weight. The fact is, we do not give our salmon time to grow 

 to that size. The greater portion of the fish that we kill are 

 two years old, or at the most three fish running from eight 

 pounds to sixteen pounds in weight. It is clear that, if we go 

 on for a year or two longer at the rate of slaughter we have 

 been indulging of late years, there will speedily not be even a 

 three-year-old fish to pull out of the water. It is very sugges- 

 tive of the state of the salmon-fisheries that we have now eaten 

 down to our three-year-olds. 



Another fertile source of destruction is the killing of grilse ; 

 the grilse being a virgin fish, its slaughter is just analogous to 

 the killing of lambs without due regulation as to quantity. In 

 this respect, " the conduct of salmon proprietors is as rational 

 as high-farming with the help of tile-drains, liquid-manure, 

 and steam-power, would be for the purpose of eating corn in 

 the blade." As many as 100,000 grilses have been taken from 

 one river in a year a notable example of killing the goose 

 for the golden egg. If we had an Act of Parliament to pre- 



