CHAP. XL] NARROW ESCAPE OF THE SALMON. 475 



net to obtain at all times an enormous amount of wholesome 

 and nutritious food. 



This style of writing on the fisheries comes largely into 

 use whenever there is a project of a joint-stock fishing com- 

 pany placed before the public. When that is the case 

 obscure little villages are pointed to as the future seats of 

 enormous prosperity, just because they happen to be thought 

 of by some enterprising speculator as the nucleus of a fishing 

 town ; and we are straightway told that Buckhorn or Kirk- 

 salt, or some equally obscure place, could be made to rival 

 those towns in Holland whose wealth and prosperity origi- 

 nated in even smaller beginnings. We are likewise informed, 

 on the occasions of giving publicity to such speculations, that 

 " the sea is a liquid mine of boundless wealth, and that thou- 

 sands of pounds might be earned by simply stretching forth 

 our hands and pulling out the fish that have scarcely room 

 to live in the teeming waters of Great Britain," etc. etc. I 

 would be glad to believe in these general statements regarding 

 our food fisheries, were I not convinced, from personal inquiry, 

 that they are a mere coinage of the brain. There are doubt- 

 less plenty of fish still in the sea, but the trouble of captur- 

 ing them increases daily, and the instruments of capture have 

 to be yearly augmented, indicating but too clearly to all who 

 have studied the subject that we are beginning to overfish. We 

 already know, in the case of the salmon, that the greed of man, 

 when thoroughly excited, can extirpate, for mere immediate 

 gain, any animal, however prolific it may be. Some of the 

 British game birds have so narrowly escaped destruction that 

 their existence, in anything like quantity, when set against the 

 armies of sportsmen who seek their annihilation, is wonderful. 



The salmon has just had a very narrow escape from exter- 

 mination. It was at one time a comparatively plentiful 

 fish, that could be obtained for food purposes at an almost 

 nominal expense, and a period dating eighty years back is 



