SCOTLAND 165 



spawners are openly destroyed in the upper waters ; 

 grievous pollution of the main river comes from the 

 mills at Galashiels, and of its chief tributary, the 

 Teviot, from those at Hawick. That combination 

 of adverse agencies might be expected to bring the 

 race of salmon near extermination. Such diligence 

 in destruction, if applied to rats, must have most 

 satisfactory results. For a series of seasons previous 

 to 1903 it seemed as if the natural result was on the 

 eve of consummation. The spring rod-fishing had 

 long ceased to count for much, except in the lower 

 reaches, from Floors downwards, where such fraction 

 of the early fish as managed in floods to run through 

 miles of nets still effected a lodgment; but the 

 autumn angling had fallen away miserably. Then 

 came the annus mirabUis 1903 the memorable wet 

 summer and autumn, when multitudes of large fish 

 appeared from goodness knows where, and thronged 

 the pools as soon as the nets were off. I myself 

 only fished two short days that autumn, in the 

 Mertoun water, beginning at eleven o'clock each day. 

 The result was seventeen fish, averaging 19 Ibs. In 

 face of such a season it is impossible to pronounce 

 the Tweed past redemption. Nevertheless, I con- 

 sider it in a parlous state. 



"A spirited attempt has been made to restore 

 the stock of fish by artificial hatching. Unluckily, 

 there is no single instance, either in this country 

 or in America, of demonstrable results of such 

 an operation. People are coming surely to the 

 conclusion that the money spent in hatcheries 



