SALMON 45 



Parrs from the burns is easily accounted for. They 

 would naturally avoid the cold shallow rivulets, and 

 fall into the deep and warmer water of the Tweed 

 during the winter months, where they could not be 

 well discovered, or be so subject to the action of 

 torrents. 



Besides the destruction of the fry in this and 

 similar modes, we must add the thousands that are 

 illegally taken at mill-dams, and the injury which 

 the long net occasions in sweeping over the spawning 

 beds. In the evidence taken before a Committee of 

 the House of Commons in 1824 or 1825, there was 

 an attempt to prove that no harm could be done in 

 this latter manner, as there was no weight, but only 

 a rope attached at the bottom of the net. This is 

 very true ; but the rope itself is sufficiently heavy 

 to sink to the bottom, and disturb the gravel of the 

 spawning beds, which, being newly raked up, and 

 put together by the Salmon, must be easily displaced. 

 It is fair, however, to observe, that the long net is 

 not used in the generality of such places as fish 

 commonly spawn in. 



To these sweeping modes of destruction we must 

 add the great havoc committed by the eels and 

 trout, which devour the spawn ; and when we 

 consider the peculiar powers and habits of the eel, 

 a fish most abundant in the Tweed, we must at once 

 see that a ruinous devastation is occasioned by these 

 creatures, which bore through the gravel. 



Strongly, however, as all these causes operate, 

 there is one more destructive than all of them put 

 together ; namely, the effect of the furious spates 



