124 SALMON-FISHERY OF SCOTLAND. 



Upon what grounds could the Doctor take upon himself to 

 assert that the salmon taken in stake-nets were not advancing 

 to the rivers ? What facts can he adduce in support of his 

 opinion ? We defy him to produce one single fact from which 

 such a conclusion can be drawn. He has admitted that the 

 salmon retire to remote parts of the ocean : what, then, does he 

 suppose to be the object of their return but to reach the rivers ? 

 And does he, a naturalist, say that, when a shoal of these salmon 

 enter an estuary, they are not all actuated by the same instincts? 

 Can he believe, without any proof, that different and contrary 

 instincts exist in the same race or the same tribe or family 

 of animals ? for he has admitted that the salmon-shoals are 

 composed of the tribes or families belonging to the different 

 rivers ; and yet he thinks that the instinct of proceeding to 

 the rivers, after having come from such a distance, was only 

 implanted into some individuals of the shoal, and not into all. 

 If salmon proceeded to or were caught in the rivers only at the 

 spawning season, the Doctor would have some reason for the 

 assertion ; but he knows perfectly well that they are constantly 

 going to the rivers, and that from the beginning of the season 

 they are regularly taken there by the river fishers ; and, there- 

 fore, to divide the shoals into fish that would go to the rivers, and 

 fish that would not, or fish with and without instincts, or under 

 the influence of contrary instincts, is an evident absurdity. In 

 proceeding up the estuaries the fish do not go in a direct line 

 to the rivers ; they are sometimes in the channel, and some- 

 times not, according to the state of the tide. At low water they 

 must be in the channel, as the sides of the estuaries are then 

 dry, from the ebb of the tide ; but at flood-tide they proceed 

 in all parts of the estuaries, and it is then they are intercepted 

 by stake-nets. The Doctor says that 30,000 were caught 

 annually in the stake-nets of the Tay. These 30,000, there- 

 fore, in his opinion, came from the ocean, without the instinct 

 of proceeding to the rivers being implanted in a single one of 

 them, though all were equally charged with spawn as those 

 which proceeded to the rivers, for he says that not one of them 

 would be caught at the rivers. Why, we again ask, does he 

 suppose these 30,000 left their migratory abode in the remote 



