374 AN ANGLER'S RAMBLES 



instances, of the mischief they are doing ; in others, I fear, fully 

 sensible of it. The good spirit, however, I am happy to observe, 

 prevails in all the fishing clubs and associations and these are 

 now pretty numerous established of late years on the banks of 

 our Border rivers ; for, as far as I can ascertain, they have 

 unanimously set face against the taking of parrs, and small fry of 

 every description. I feel at liberty to conclude, therefore, that 

 the introduction of a clause into the General Fishery Act, making 

 applicable to Tweed that portion of the Statute in question, which 

 provides for the protection of the salmon fry in our northern 

 rivers, so far from being objected to, by parties worth consider- 

 ing, will be hailed by them with great satisfaction. For my own 

 part, I am quite satisfied it is high time that something should be 

 done in the way of putting a stop to a practice, at once so un- 

 sportsmanlike, and so injurious to the salmon-fishings of Tweed 

 and its tributaries. 



I have expressed decidedly, but not a whit too strongly, my 

 views upon the treatment which the parr-stock of Tweed is re- 

 ceiving at the hands of a certain class of anglers. The amount 

 of mischief annually inflicted on it from this source I may have 

 underrated exaggerated it I certainly have not. The disaster 

 named, however, is only one of several to which the fry of our 

 salmon lie exposed, and I have given it a prominent place in the 

 list of casualties, not because it tells more severely than any of 

 the others on the produce of the Tweed, but because it is capable 

 to a much greater extent of being remedied. 



From the attacks made upon them by the common river-trout 

 and the kelted eriox, or bull-trout, it is that the salmon fry in 

 reality suffer most ; indeed, it is quite impossible to arrive at a 

 just estimate of the damage done by these marauders. That it 

 is enormous can be proved by the fact, made palpable to our 

 senses over and over again, that at a certain season of the year 



