ATROCIOUS CONTRIVANCES. 217 



up, and immigration to fresh water takes place 

 in companies as did emigration to sea-water. 

 Why ? Because as all foul fish do not go to the 

 feeding-beds at the same time, so they do not re- 

 turn to fresh w^ater simultaneously. Those com- 

 panies which reach the feeding places at sea first, 

 leave them first, for no other reason than this, 

 that their appetites are the first to inform them 

 that they have consumed a quantum sufficit of 

 sea-grown food. They would return, being " full- 

 fed," as Mr. Young terms it, to their native rivers 

 in larger shoals than they do, were they not scat- 

 tered, injuriously dispersed, and considerably 

 thinned by natural enemies and artificial obstruc- 

 tions which they encounter in the firths in their 

 homeward journey, during which they are at- 

 tacked, routed, and slain in large numbers by por- 

 poises and seals, and impeded, caught, or driven 

 back to sea by the greatest of all salmon-abomi- 

 nations, those buccaniering implements of de- 

 struction called fixed or stake-nets. These atrocious 

 contrivances project from the shore long distances 

 into firths, remaining fixed night and day, and as 

 salmon travel homewards by an in-shore route, 

 rather than a deep-sea one, incalculable is the 

 mischief resulting from such destructive fixtures. 

 When salmon have descended rivers to the sea 



