STAKE NETS. 201 



They are regular mousetraps, most destructive, 

 and with great reason complained of by the 

 river, or upper proprietors. Some doubts cer- 

 tainly exist whether all the fish which they take 

 would ever reach the upper properties, because 

 it is contended that not one half which come to 

 the mouth of the river ever go up it. One of 

 the chief reasons for this opinion being, the 

 admitted fact that in thus swimming to and fro at 

 the mouth, they continually become prey for the 

 hungry shoals of porpesse, grampus, and seals, 

 which more or less always hang about the estuary. 

 But it is also undeniable, that hundreds and hun- 

 dreds of salmon, which these estuary stake-nets 

 catch, would sooner or later venture up the 

 river, and there spawn, or be captured by the 

 upper proprietors. My belief is, that these stake- 

 nets are one principal cause of the great falling 

 off of all the salmon rivers in the United King- 

 dom. They, in fact, destroy the seed of futurity 

 to too great an extent. Too many salmon are 

 taken. 



Herb. But I understood you to say that the 

 spawning fish, from swimming upwards in deep 

 water, do not fall into these traps. 



Thcoph. That may be very true ; but you 

 forget, and so do the advocates for stake-nets, 

 that every fish would spawn some time or other. 

 Denying that they cause this injury, these gentle- 



