SALMON-FISHERY OF SCOTLAND. 7 



it will be observed, scarcely any fishing of salmon on the 

 coasts ; the whole was confined to the rivers, and carried on by 

 means of what the stake-net fishers are pleased to call the rude 

 fishing apparatus of our rude ancestors ; although they have 

 forgotten to add, that it has always been among rude nations, 

 and by means of rude fishing machines, that salmon have been 

 caught in the greatest abundance. 



In England, as we have already remarked, the salmon-fishery 

 has declined in proportion as the population and riches of the 

 country have increased. In Scotland, the discovery, by the 

 late Mr George Dempster of Dunichen, of exporting salmon in 

 ice to the London market, has contributed to produce the same 

 effect, by raising the price of the fish, and thus stimulating the 

 salmon-fishers to a greater destruction of the species. From 

 this period, accordingly, may be dated the commencement of 

 the decline of the Scotch fisheries ; which, though compara- 

 tively trifling at first, has latterly been accelerated in a ratio 

 which threatens, at no distant period, the entire extinction of 

 this important branch of national industry. 



The rise of price occasioned by the means which Mr Demp- 

 ster's discovery had furnished, of sending salmon in a fresh 

 state to the London market, not only rendered the fishers more 

 assiduous and industrious in their fishing operations, but proved 

 a strong inducement to employ new and more destructive 

 modes in capturing the fish. Hence stake-nets were intro- 

 duced from the Solway into the Tay, and thence into all the 

 other friths in Scotland ; and vast quantities of salmon were 

 caught in these engines quantities which were represented as 

 so much absolute gain to the public, inasmuch as, but for these 

 admirable engines, they could never, it was said, have been 

 caught at all ! The stake-nets, accordingly, became quite popu- 

 lar, and were regarded as a great practical discovery. To keep 

 up the delusion, their owners maintained that the supply of 

 fish was perfectly inexhaustible ; that the sea literally swarmed 

 with them ; that salmon were as numerous as haddocks along 

 the coasts ; and that nothing was wanting but effectual means 

 of capturing them, which their apparatus alone supplied. And 

 till this the public believed, because the public knew nothing 



