62 DAYS AND NIGHTS OF SALMON FISHING. 



it was from yourself I had it twenty years ago, I used 

 to notice that there were scarcely any Parrs in the 

 Tweed during the winter months." 



So far Mr. Laidlaw. The disappearance of the 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 dis- 

 covered, 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, how- 

 ever, 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. 



