126 SALMON-FISHEBY OF SCOTLAND. 



nient in the vicinity of the Manse ; but justice had also had 

 some claims on our naturalist, upon whose evidence, but for 

 his reputation as such, we would have bestowed very little 

 notice, considering it, as we do, full of ignorance regarding the 

 true nature both of the fish and the fishery. 



Mr Little, being bred a stake-net fisher, and, in truth, the 

 father of the stake-net system, the bias of his mind lay natu- 

 rally that way ; but it is deserving of remark, that when these 

 engines were making their approaches to his own river, he 

 opposed them most stoutly by every legal means in his power. 

 He tells the Committee that if stake-nets are kept half a mile 

 from the mouth of a river they will do its fishery no harm ; 

 supposing, of course, that when a shoal of salmon return from 

 their migratory voyage and enter a frith, those which have the 

 stake-net instinct in them steer for the stake-net banks, and 

 the others for the rivers, so directly up the channel, that they 

 diverge neither to the right nor to the left till within half a, 

 mile of the river mouth when, tired of their monotonous 

 course up the channel, or impelled by curiosity, they wander a 

 little out of the channel, so that, if this last half-mile be kept 

 free of machinery, it signifies not to the upper fisheries how 

 full the rest of the estuary may be of it, there being no risk of 

 the fish deviating from the channel till they come in view of 

 port that is of the river, the very part, we should think, where 

 they would be most apt to keep the direct course ; and there- 

 fore, says Mr Little, no stake-net should be allowed within 

 that half mile. Nothing can be more conclusive than this 

 reasoning, though it is somewhat at variance with the terror- 

 argument of Dr Fleming, and with the lousy argument of the 

 stake-net fishers, which would lead us to suppose that the 

 salmon would then rush into the rivers at once. 



Another witness examined in the Committee, a gentleman 

 also of scientific pretensions, Mr John Steavenson, of Fortrose, 

 tells us that salmon enter rivers just as the water happens to 

 be to their TASTE. He says, 



" Salmon are - extremely nice, and will only go into fresh water 

 when it is exactly to their taste. For example, the Ness, Ewe, 

 Shinn, and Thurso supply the earliest fish. The reason is plain. 



