APPENDIX. 3 1 



1850 that the clear profit of his fishery on the river Spey had 

 amounted in the preceeding year to 12,460. The Duke of Beau- 

 fort possesses a right of fishing about 20 miles in extent on the lower 

 part of the Wye, a river which in regard to its natural capabilities 

 may be regarded as second only to the Severn. The rental which 

 his Grace receives for the fishery is only l2Q per annum. This is 

 a striking, bnt by no means a solitary case of extreme depression. 



The conclusion as to the decline of the salmon fisheries, to which 

 the evidence and records above referred to have led us, was irresisti- 

 bly confirmed by what we ourselves witnessed in the course of our 

 inspection. We had opportunities of seeing those causes in full 

 operation to which the destruction of the fish was generally abscribed, 

 and we have no hesitation in declaring that in the face of the im- 

 pediments and barriers, and other destructive agencies, which exist on. 

 all the rivers, it is impossible that any other result than a great de- 

 terioration of the fisheries could have taken place ; iudeed, it is in. 

 some cases a matter of surprise, not that the supply should have 

 greatly fallen off, but that the breed should not have been totally 

 extinguished. 



Of all the evils that affect the fisheries artificial obstructions must 

 beyond all question be regarded as the most pernicious. It is obvious 

 that to exclude the fish from entering the rivers at all is a surer way 

 of destroying the breed than even the most deadly mode of making 

 war upon them when they are there. Moreover it is certain that 

 these barriers to the passage of the fish, even if they do not absolutely 

 hut them out, offer great facility and encouragement to the unfair 

 means employed for destroying them. 



In many parts of England and Wales we found weirs and dams 

 extending across the whole breadth of the rivers, presenting from 

 their height and construction great obstacles to the ascent of the fish, 

 in some cases absolutely impassable in any state of the water, inmost 

 others insurmountable except in time of fresh or flood. In very few 

 instances had any mode of passage for the ascending fish been pro- 

 vided in the shape of stairs or ladders, and in no instance were such 

 conveniences properly constructed. 



Of the rivers in which this evil exists to the greatest extent we 

 may specify the Ouse, Wharfe, Eure, Derwent, and others in York- 

 shire, in which salmon formerly existed in good quantity, and which 

 are well adapted by nature to produce them, but from which they are 

 now all but totally excluded. We may instance also the Severn, Dee, 

 Tyne, Lune, Derwent in Cumberland, Tawe, Torridge, Avon (Hamp- 

 shire), and Test. 



II. 



Of the lamentable destruction of animal life and waste of human 

 food which is caused by the stoppage or detention of the fish by 

 these barriers, no one who is at all acquainted with the habits of the 



