100 SCOTCH SALMON AND SCOTCH LAW. 



recovered from the effects of the stake-net system, it 

 amounted to 5930 boxes, being, during these three years, 

 265 boxes a - year more than was produced by both 

 fisheries while the stake-nets were in operation. 



With such facts properly authenticated we are really 

 unable to swallow the selfish assertions of those sea 

 Salmonicides who try to persuade us that, if they be 

 permitted to supply our tables, we shall never lack 

 salmon. On the contrary, we have a shrewd guess 

 that if their purses be replenished they will not carry 

 their philanthropy beyond the fish-market of to-day ; if 

 it be supplied, their purpose is gained. Posterity may 

 sigh for salmon what is that to them whose business 

 is to catch fish for the men of this evil generation who 

 insist on having salmon ? 



But we humbly opine that salmon are intended to 

 last as long as men, and would so last if men were not 

 such dolts as to deliberately transgress the laws of all- 

 wise Providence And as Governments are for the com- 

 mon weal, and not for the special behoof of fishing propri- 

 etors along the coast, they do well in not risking the 

 future existence of salmon, by leaving them to the consi- 

 deration of those bent on slaying them by methods so ex- 

 terminating as stake and stage nets are proved to be. 



Upon the whole, then, though we cannot be in such 

 hot wrath as he is (very naturally after losing, we have 

 been told, <5000 in law expenses), we think that the 

 late Laird of Ardross has much reason on his side, when 

 with vigorous indignation he protests against the inva- 

 sion of the rights of upper- river proprietors, who are 

 made " clocking-hens to hatch the fish that the folks 

 below are to catch and eat." Salmon, he argues, are 

 not fercR naturce, and belong to no particular property. 

 " Each river possesses its own variety of the species 

 which belongs to itself exclusively, and which is forced 

 by instinct to return to it, and to no other river. The 

 natural right of the owner of such river to its salmon 

 is, therefore, just the same as the right of the owner of 



