96 SCOTCH SALMON AND SCOTCH LAW. 



mitted to erect all manner of destructive engines for 

 the purpose of intercepting salmon on their return to 

 their native waters, where alone they can propagate. 

 It is here that the interest of the public comes in. The 

 national stomach desiderates salmon, and this all the 

 more eagerly the rarer it becomes. The national con- 

 science has not patience to expiscate the facts in a 

 twenty years' litigation between the caterers for the 

 public maw. The cry is, " Give us salmon ! abundantly 

 and cheaply, if possible ; if not, at any price ; by what 

 means we care not. Let us have salmon caught by 

 net and coble, by stake or stage, still, poke, or bag-net, 

 we inquire not which." Oh guzzling and gullible pub- 

 lic ! why speak thus senselessly ? Is the fable of the 

 fool who, covetous of money in hand, killed the goose 

 that laid the golden eggs, clean forgotten ? Will you 

 not listen to the " fresh- water proprietors," when, in 

 answer to the charge of being greedy monopolists, they 

 undertake to demonstrate that rivers are the true source 

 of the salmon-fishery ; that to hinder the salmon having 

 free access to them is a fatal barrier to the prosperity 

 of salmon fisheries, and a grievous damage to the 

 national wealth ; that stake -net fishing cannot possibly 

 add to the number of salmon sent to market, but neces- 

 sarily tends to its rapid diminution; and that when 

 most successfully followed, the market price of salmon 

 did not fall one farthing; in short, that all sorts of fixed 

 engines for the capture of salmon .in the sea are in- 

 jurious to the common weal, and unjust to river pro- 

 prietors, whose waters are the true nurseries of the 

 salmon ? To read this long sentence will take away 

 the breath of the thoughtless public, and before it is 

 finished we think we hear a clearing of the throat an 

 audible hem, at last finding speech in articulate words. 

 " Oh ! we did not think of all that ; we did not know 

 that the more salmon we kill in the sea this year, the 

 fewer will breed in the rivers, and consequently the 

 fewer will return to the sea next year, and so the fewer 



