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" If we attend to the natural history of the Salmon Fry, we shall 

 find, that in rivers, even where these are under the influence of the 

 tide, the tender beings descend in myriads at the margin of the stream, 

 but when they reach the head of the estuary, they betake themselves 

 to the shelter of the deep and salt water. If fixed nets be erected in 

 those places, in rivers which are frequented by the fry, the injury to 

 the Fisheries, arising from their destruction, will be great indeed. It 

 was to guard against this evil that they were prohibited in rivers in 

 England, by Magna Charta, and in Scotland by an Act of Robert I., 

 while they were left unfettered in their use on the sea coast. But at 

 what point are we to assign the limit, riverward of which the tide nets 

 ought to be prohibited 1 It is the want of precision, in our statutes, in 

 reference to this point, that has created in our estuaries an extent of 

 debatable ground, the disputes concerning which have led to the pre- 

 sent parliamentary inquiry. It is fortunate for those senators, who are 

 now called upon to legislate upon a subject which their predecessors 

 overlooked, that there is a natural limit, riverward of which tide-nets 

 can, in no ordinary circumstances, injure or intercept either the de- 

 scending spawned fish or the fry; and that limit is the point where 

 the river is intersected by the mean level of the sea, and where the 

 fish, migrating downwards, avoid the margin from its turbulent cha- 

 racter, and occupy the middle and bottom of the estuary. We are 

 aware, that there is another natural limit, which has been proposed, 

 viz., the point of constant ebbing or flowing, or point of stagnation at 

 the head of the estuary. Though this point will seldom be far distant 

 from the other, it is inferior to it in permanency of character, since it 

 will be found more seaward in winter than in summer, and during 

 floods than in the ordinary state of the river, as it is the point where 

 the antagonist currents neutralize each other in a common level. 



" If tide-nets be permitted at the mouths of rivers, even for some 

 distance seaward of the point where the river naturally ceases, they 

 will be productive of two evils, against which it is necessary to guard. 

 They will interrupt the trade in the river, in ships and boats, and 

 thereby prove a nuisance in a commercial country. They may be so 

 arranged, even when prohibited beyond low water mark, as to inter- 

 cept all the fish about to enter the river, and thus deprive the proprie- 

 tors of inland fisheries of all share in the spoil. But both these evils 

 admit of a very simple remedy. In no case, in an estuary having a 

 bar at its junction with the sea, should the outer posts of the nets ex- 

 tend beyond low water, so as to preserve entire the full stream of the 

 river to the sea; and in no case should they occupy a space on the 

 banks on each side of the estuary, exceeding the tenth part of the 

 breadth occupied by the water at the flood of neap tides. By such an 

 arrangement, the navigation of the head of the estuary would not be 

 interrupted, or monopoly of the fish acquired. 



" It is not to be disguised, that tide-nets, even when restrained in 

 estuaries within the limits now recommended, have been held up to 



?ublic odium, as detrimental in the extreme to the true interests of the 

 'isheries, and as interfering with the natural and vested rights of the 

 inland proprietors. After an attentive examination of all the objec- 

 tions to the use of tide-nets, we have been led to trace them, exclu- 

 sively, either to ignorance of their real nature, or to the most unjusti- 



