COMMERCIAL VALUE OF SALMON. 199 



carried on in this particular fish has been at the rate of over 

 100,000 a year ; and although our salmon-fisheries are not 

 nearly equal in value to the herring and white fisheries, still 

 the individual salmon is our most tangible fish, and brings to 

 its owner a larger sum of money than any other member of 

 the fish family. Indeed, of late years this "monarch of the 

 brook" has become emphatically the rich man's fish ; its price 

 for table purposes, at certain seasons of the year, being only 

 compatible with a large income ; and liberty to play one's rod 

 on a salmon river is a privilege paid for at a high figure per 

 annum. Such facts at once elevate Salmo solar to the highest 

 regions of luxury : certainly, salmon can no longer find a 

 place on the tables of the poor ; for we shall never again hear 

 of its selling at twopence per pound, or of farm-servants bar- 

 gaining not to be compelled to eat it oftener than twice a week. 

 At every stage of its career the salmon is surrounded by 

 enemies. At the very moment of spawning, the female is 

 watched by a horde of devourers, who instinctively flock to 

 the breeding-grounds in order to feast on the ova. The 

 hungry pike, the lethargic perch, the greedy trout, the very 

 salmon itself, are lying in wait, all agape for the palatable roe, 

 and greedily swallowing whatever quantity the current carries 

 down. Then the water-fowl eagerly pounces on the precious 

 deposit the moment it has been forsaken by the fish ; and if 

 it escape being gobbled up by such cormorants, the spawn 

 may be washed away by a flood, or the position of the bed 

 may be altered, and the ova be destroyed perhaps for want of 

 water. As an instance of the loss incidental to salmon-spawn- 

 ing in the natural way, I may just mention that a whitling of 

 about three-quarters of a pound weight has been taken in the 

 Tay with three hundred impregnated salmon ova in its 

 stomach ! If this fish had been allowed to dine and break- 

 fast at this rate during the whole of the spawning season it 

 would have been difficult to estimate the loss our fisheries 



