166 SALMON FISHING 



would be applied far more beneficially to protecting 

 the spawners on the natural redds. Nobody who 

 has witnessed the descent of smolts in a salmon river 

 can fail to realise that the liberation of two or three 

 million alevins, or two or three thousand smolts, can 

 have no appreciable bearing upon the total of fish 

 returning from the sea. If the supply of ova for 

 the Tweed hatcheries were taken from the upper 

 waters, about Innerleithen, no harm would be done, 

 because these fish generally meet with a violent 

 death before completing the process of reproduc- 

 tion ; but if, as I believe to be the case, the 

 spawners are netted in the lower reaches, where they 

 would not otherwise be interfered with, there is 

 no advantage to compensate for the mischief done 

 by disturbing fish at a most critical period. 



"To restore the Tweed to its former excellence 

 as a spring and summer angling stream, the follow- 

 ing measures seem to be necessary : 



1. Prohibition of netting above Thomases Island, 

 where the tide stops. 



. Rod-fishing to cease on November 15 at 

 latest. 



3. Stringent application of the Rivers Pollution 

 Act, or the exercise of such powers as those 

 whereby the Thames Conservancy have puri- 

 fied their river. 



4. The application of money now spent on the 

 hatchery to an additional force of watchers 

 to repress the poaching with drift nets in the 

 sea during the close season." 



