368 AN ANGLER'S RAMBLES 



the Amendment Act of 1859. What follows, in order to suit 

 the circumstances under which the river now opens, and the 

 bearings of the Acts in question upon the taking of foul fish, I 

 have slightly altered. The opening of Tweed on the 1st of Feb- 

 ruary, is usually accompanied at the various netting stations by 

 considerable captures, not of kelts only, but also of ripe baggits 

 and kippers, or salmon on the eve of spawning. I have known, 

 under the old Act, when the river opened a fortnight later, to 

 the amount of eighty she-fish, all large and primed with ova, 

 having been taken in a single day from a limited portion of 

 Tweed on one of these occasions ; and I have every reason to 

 believe, judging from the backwardness of the fish, and the 

 irregularities which occur in their spawning, that the termination 

 of future fence-times will be followed up by similar captures. 

 Now, what I propose is this, that the Tweed Commissioners, or 

 parties having an interest in the salmon-fishings of the river, 

 should instruct competent persons to attend the various netting 

 stations at the opening of the season, for the purpose of express- 

 ing, collecting, and inoculating, when opportunity offers, this 

 great annual wastage of spawn, for the purpose also (not of stow- 

 ing it away in wooden boxes, over which an artificial run of 

 water shall be directed, but) of committing it to ' redds ' formed 

 with the shovel, hoe, or plough, in the bed of the river itself, 

 . there to await, as a matter of common certainty, its being brought 

 to life. In Tweed there are at hand fifty fords where such 

 'redds' might be scooped out side by side, if thought expedient, 

 at a trifling expense, and the roe deposited in them, say, put up 

 in small paper bags, without the loss of even a single pellet. A 

 little below Tillmouth, for instance, also opposite Lees, and at 

 Edenmouth, there are fine gravelly stretches, secure from drought 

 or the effects of large floods, where this experiment might be 

 ventured on ; but preferable to these, in my estimation, are cer- 

 tain portions of the river situated betwixt Melrose and Kelso, 



