294 Salmon- Fishing. 



the mouth, it is the large volume of water there, or 

 the floods at the time of their ascent, which dilute 

 the poison and render it less deadly. But some- 

 times the impurities are too many even for 

 salmon. "Almost every year," says Dr Glinther, 

 " salmon and sea-trout in the grilse state make 

 their appearance at the mouth of the Thames 

 (where the migratory Salmonoids have been ex- 

 tinct for many years) ready to reascend and restock 

 this river as soon as its poisoned water shall be 

 sufficiently purified to allow them a passage." 



In a paper on the Loch Lomond fishings, read 

 before the Scotch Fisheries Improvement Associa- 

 tion (26th September 1884), we find the following : 

 " In dry weather hundreds of salmon and trout are 

 found dead in the river Leven, poisoned by refuse 

 from the dye-works fat, healthy fish, quite fit for 

 the table : in fact, the people collect them and sell 

 them for food. Tens of thousands of young fry and 

 smolts also die every year by this means on their 

 way to the sea. Besides the actual death inflicted 

 by these poisonous stuffs, they further injure the 

 loch by keeping the fish in the cleaner waters of the 

 tideway, pending a freshet to permit them to pass 

 up ; and when in that situation they fall a prey 

 to the ever- watchful poacher, who nets the lower 

 waters on the pretence of catching herring." In- 

 stances might be given of similar destruction in 



