OUR ItlVER HARVESTS. 267 



deserted, and retaining them in those out of which they 

 are now rapidly disappearing. 



The first step is evidently to find out the causes 

 which drive them out of our streams, and try to rectify 

 them ; for it is clear that to stock a river with salmon 

 would be an useless expenditiu*e of time and trouble, 

 when every fish is sure to be killed before it is as big 

 as a sprat. 



Perhaps there is no fish so systematically persecuted 

 as the salmon; and when all the circmnstances are 

 reviewed, it is really a wonder that a single salmon ever 

 attains its full size. From the time when the unhatched 

 egg is deposited in the river, to the time when the fish 

 returns to fulfil its great office, every yard of water 

 contains a foe, and every mile of river conceals a trap. 

 The eggs are surreptitiously taken by poaching anglers, 

 and used as bait for other fishes, and the young fry 

 when hatched, and just able to move, are gobbled up 

 in thousands by various finny depredators and water fowl 

 of diflFerent kinds. 



But, putting aside these natural enemies, which, 

 after aU, only preserve the due balance of nature, the 

 artificial impediments with which the fish meet are 

 numerous and fatal to a degree. These impediments 

 may be divided into two classes — ^the fixed and the 

 moveable. The latter term includes spears, or leisters — 

 terrible instruments, like Neptune's trident, on whose 

 barbed prongs the salmon is impaled as it lies on the 

 bed of the river — and nets of all kinds, ingeniously 



