188 



sale could not be made of salmon caught by the fishermen with cots 

 and nets, as of what were caught by the weir, for that by plunging 

 about in the nets they are apt to knock their scales off and injure 

 themselves. 



With respect to the difference between the value of a salmon taken 

 in the sea or in the fresh water, he stated that the London salesmen 

 give fourpence a pound more for a tidewater fish, caught near the 

 mouth of a river; that fish going up and remaining above three weeks 

 out of the tidewater into fresh water become * grey,' and of a gluey 

 fat nature, and that salesmen mark in their account the number of 

 grey fish fourpence per pound less than what they pay for the tide- 

 water take. 



BURNING THE WATER. In Scotland this illicit practice is termed 

 " blazing," and the fire is frequently carried about in a machine called 

 a " cruizie." The spear used is called a " lester" (in Ireland a "lyster.") 

 Parties of as many as twenty or thirty men sally out after nightfall, 

 one man walks in the centre carrying the " blaze," a faggot made of 

 dry fir, sometimes dry broom, stuck on a pole, this he raises high 

 above his head; there are generally two persons, walking one before, 

 the other behind him, carrying the lester, or three-pronged spear. 



In Ireland the light is often a torch of bog-fir, or the readier expe- 

 dient of a wisp of straw and lucifer match, especially when the poacher 

 apprehends detection. The spear commonly used is not tridental, but 

 has from five to seven prongs. The fire throws a strong glare on the 

 water, and the fish are easily seen and struck. It is only during the 

 close season that salmon are thus accessible, when they are on the 

 spawning beds ; at an earlier period they are in deep water. 



This practice is perhaps the most destructive of any to the increase 

 of river fisheries, whether considered as the taking of fish hardly fit 

 for human consumption, or, in the more consequential view, as destroy- 

 ing them at the very period when about to accomplish that surprising 

 power of increasing and multiplying their species with which nature 

 has endowed the salmon tribe. 



XV. 

 SCOTTISH SEA FISHERIES. 



The recent examination by Captain Washington, by direction of the 

 Admiralty, into the disastrous loss of life, and damage to fishing pro- 



?erty, on the east coast of Scotland, in the gale of the 19th August, 

 848, and his interesting report, elicit some remarkable facts connected 

 with sea-coast fishing. On that part of North Britain, the calling is 

 prosecuted in small open boats, which nightly leave the harbours, and 

 return laden with herrings during the season, in a fresh state for the 

 curer. The rocky character of the shore makes it impossible for the 

 fishermen to beach their craft a class of boats not calculated to outlive a 

 storm, and therefore dependent on shelter. Considerable loss of life and 

 boats had previously occurred before the date above mentioned; but on 

 that melancholy occasion, 124 boats, belonging to five of the principal 

 fishing towns, were lost or damaged, by which, (besides a loss of nets, 

 &c., to the value of 7,011,) more than 100 men were drowned, leav- 



