92 SCOTCH SALMON AND SCOTCH LAW. 



impulse, or from being carried down with the tide ? " 

 " They are going down from their own natural impulse 

 with the tide." Whereupon our wrathful author thus 

 falls foul both of the witness and his questioner: "Had 

 Mr Kennedy known anything of the principles of the 

 migratory system, he could never have supposed that, 

 after the salmon had left their migratory abode in the 

 ocean, and reached the mouths of the rivers, they would, 

 without any apparent cause, turn back again, any more 

 than a flock of lapwings or woodcocks would do so after 

 having reached our shores, and would not have asked 

 an ignorant man such ridiculous questions ; and which, 

 besides, common sense might have shown him it was 

 impossible the witness could answer, for what means 

 could the witness, or any man, have of discovering 

 whether the fish went down from their own natural im- 

 pulse with the tide, or, in short, whether they went down 

 at all, since he could not see their movements under 

 water even in the space of 100 yards, much less over 

 the whole expanse of the Frith ? V 



The late Kev. Dr Fleming, though admitted to be a 

 naturalist and a man of science, and therefore a witness 

 of a higher caste, is treated with equally little cere- 

 mony : " How far" (the Committee ask) " do you think 

 the salmon may go into a river, when not obstructed, 

 and return to the sea without having spawned ? " The 

 doctor, having previously stated that salmon frequently 

 enter rivers in order to escape from the numerous foes 

 which persecute them in the estuaries, observed " A 

 great deal must depend on the degree of terror of the 

 fish, its strength, and the state of the river." Our 

 critic is down upon the man of science in a trice, and 

 declares that the doctor in divinity is shockingly hete- 

 rodox in supposing that the migratory instinct of the 

 salmon is inadequate for the purpose for which it was 

 intended ; " which, in other words, is to deny the prin- 

 ciple of perfection in the works of the Deity. This we 

 would not expect from a son of the Church." Certain 



