SALMON-FISHERY OF SCOTLAND. 15 



of the season ; but this cannot be done without a considerable 

 sacrifice on the part of the river proprietors : and is it likely, or 

 natural, or reasonable, to suppose that they will, voluntarily, 

 make this sacrifice, for the benefit of the coast proprietors, who, 

 by intercepting the fish when returning from the sea, would 

 reap the principal advantage resulting from it ? This is one of 

 the great evils arising to the salmon-fishery, from the system of 

 the Scotch Court in giving every encouragement in their power 

 to the coast proprietors, at the expense of the river fishings. 



The number of salmon in a river, granting that it is suffi- 

 ciently stocked with breeding fish, depends upon its length, the 

 extent of its spawning grounds, and the number of its tributary 

 streams. In all these particulars the Tay and the Spey stand 

 conspicuous among the Scotch rivers, and they accordingly 

 produce by far the greatest quantity of fish ; but if salmon 

 entered rivers only as chance directed, as the stake-net fishers 

 tell us, it is evident that all those advantages, or the number 

 of fish bred in a river, would not be of the least use to its 

 fishery, as the fish would take the first river they met with, and 

 another river, possessing none of those advantages, and in which 

 a single salmon was not bred, if situated more in the course of 

 the fish, would kill the greatest quantity. This would be so 

 contrary to experience, and to common sense, that we find the 

 advocates of the chance system themselves, even where their 

 rivers are in such remote situations that no chance fish would 

 apparently reach them, incurring considerable annual expense 

 for the preservation of their breeding fish, which is a tacit 

 acknowledgment of their being conscious of the reverse of what 

 they say. 



Salmon spawn in different rivers at different periods of the 

 season. Those which come earliest into a river, and reach the 

 higher parts, generally spawn sooner than those below. In all 

 rivers it seems necessary that the salmon should remain some 

 weeks in the river previous to spawning, and they are generally 

 several days on the spawning-fords before the operations com- 

 mence. Mr Home Drummond's Act* has, therefore, trenched 

 greatly on the spawning season, in the early rivers, as well as 



* 9 Geo. 4, Cap. 39. ED. 



