FISHES. 587 



They are now very rare in those rivers. The coast of Picardy is 

 well furnished, but they are rare in upper and lower Normandy. 

 In Norway, especially in the district of Drontheim, the salmon 

 fishery is conducted on a large scale on the sea-shore as well as in 

 the interior waters. The Baltic is rich in salmon. Considerable 

 fisheries are carried on in the waters of the Gulfs of Finland and 

 Bothnia, as well as in the waters of Swedish Laponia. The takes 

 vary greatly; in 1860 being much above the average throughout 

 Great Britain; while in 1772 the fish were so scarce in the Tweed 

 that it was believed they had gone off the coast. They invariably 

 go to leeward with the wind, and have been caught 100 miles 

 off land. Salmon are in condition at various periods of the 

 year, apparently not depending on the latitude of the rivers. Thus, 

 the Tay is one of the earliest rivers, while the north and south 

 Esk are the latest, yet they debouch within a few miles of each 

 other. It. is the opinion of Mr. Joseph Johnston of Montrose 

 (whose acknowledged fifty years' practical experience carries weight 

 with it in all parliamentary committees on this question) that the 

 Stormontfield ponds, by artificially rearing the parr, render them 

 more helpless when they commence river life on their own account. 

 As a natural result, the death-ratio is enormously increased cui bono f 

 especially when the parr have only the option of leaving, and are not 

 compelled to go out. We must, therefore, receive Dr. Bertram's 

 narrative, much as we respect his authority, with some reserve. The 

 young will not grow, nor will a parr ever become a grilse, unless 

 under given conditions ; it is therefore an easy matter to explain the 

 anomaly of a parr passing seaward becoming a four-pound grilse, 

 while its twin-brother remaining in the breeding-pond is conditionally 

 developed as only a half-ounce samlet, yet none the less a dwarfed 

 grilse the possibility of growth existing all the while, although it 

 was not actively evoked by physical surroundings. 



The modes of procedure in salmon fishery are very various. 

 Spearing with tridents, and liestering with a weighted hook by torch- 

 light " burning the water," as the Scotch have it as well as trammel, 

 wear, and cruive-wear fishing, are now prohibited. Legal fishing in 

 rivers is confined to row nets, and fly and bait rod fishing, fixtures 

 being illegal since 1810. Wear shot; a larger and heavier row-net 

 placed at the meeting of the waters ; stake, fly, and bag-nets are 

 used in the open sea. The latter is most in vogue, the former being 

 almost superseded by the fly. Fixtures on the sea coast were held 

 to be legal in Lord Kintore's case by the House ot Lords in 1828, and 

 continued so till the passing of the recent Act. By this Act all legal 



