68 THE NATURAL HISTORY AND HABITS 



suitable time better than we can do, and if we try to 

 force them to produce their young against the laws of 



" My preference for an upper range of the river is formed upon 

 an acquaintance with the instinct of the salmon, owing to which, 

 in their choice of spawning-ground, they are generally guided to 

 a considerable distance from the sea; and seeing that the motives 

 which sway them cannot be traced to any regard to their own 

 personal security, I am led to conclude that such instincts are 

 connected entirely with the security of their spawn or offspring ; 

 however, I don't insist upon this as a matter of such consequence, 

 and it is possible enough that the experiment I suggest may after 

 all prove as successful in the neighbourhood Coldstream as in that 

 of Newtown or Inverleithen. In comparing the advantages which 

 the proposed mode of cultivating the salmon stock possesses over 

 any system of artificial breeding hitherto attempted, very little 

 need be said. These advantages declare themselves. They are 

 as manifest as daylight. The experiment, properly conducted, 

 cannot fail. It is at once the simplest, the cheapest, and the most 

 certain mode of propagating salmon that can possibly be adopted. 



" Immediately on the expiry of close time, the nets and cables 

 are set in motion. A few shots determine, in most cases, the con- 

 tents of the river, near the stations where these are made. For 

 every clean salmon taken on Tweed during the first fortnight, 

 there are at least a dozen of kelts, and four or five unspawned fish 

 generally in a very forward or mature state. These are secured, 

 as a matter of course, during the ordinary endeavours made by the 

 fisherman to bring the net into contact with something better; 

 there is no cost or extra labour therefore required in order to 

 obtain the spawn, farther than the attendance of one or two men 

 at each station to collect the ova and conduct the inoculating 

 process, and deposit it in the * redd.' Can anything be simpler 

 or less expensive ? Well, mark the results. There is a quantity 

 of ova which never would have a chance of being brought to life, 

 these ova, down to single pellets, are rescued from certain de- 

 struction, and buried, with extreme care, in a certain portion of 

 the river, where no ordinary calamity can possibly overtake them. 

 The result will be that almost all the ova inhumed will come to 

 life. And say that they form the supply from only two hundred 

 baggits, each baggit yielding a trifle beyond 10,000 ova, we have 

 at once added to the natural resources of the river a hatch or 



