76 THE HISTORY AND HABITS OF THE SALMOX. 



From Mr. G. Boccius. 



" Mr. EDITOR, I have read, with considerable interest,, 

 the letter of ' A. Y.' in your last Number, on the cause 

 of the scarcity of grilse,, this past season, in the Northern 

 rivers. But the scarcity has not been confined to the 

 North only, as every river in the United Kingdom has met 

 with a similar fate. Your experienced correspondent has 

 most correctly hit upon the true cause of the deficiency 

 of fish, and I can only hope that his indefatigable perse- 

 verance will press him to more minute observation ; name- 

 ly, he states, and with truth, that the floods of 1849 have 

 been the cause of the serious falling off of salmon stocks ; 

 and he further believes that the whole of the hills (spawn- 

 ing-beds) were washed away.* This, 1 think, is an error, 

 for if ' A. Y.' would be good enough to examine the 

 hills in the month of April, should the rivers have run 

 thick and flooded this coming spawning season, I have every 

 reason to state that he will find the eggs addled, instead of 

 being washed away. The cause of the eggs becoming 

 addled is very simple ; agricultural pursuits f are extending 

 with great rapidity through the whole empire, whether it 

 be in the valley or on the hill ; and consequently, as every 

 brook is the sewer to the surrounding district, so does the 

 water become turgid upon the fall of rain ; and should 

 such be the case during the process of incubation of the 



* " A. Y." said nothing of the sort. He did not use the word 

 " whole " at all. 



f ** Mr. Boccius seems to be thinking of nothing else but the 

 rivers of the well cultivated and manufacturing districts of 

 England. He is evidently little acquainted with the great sal- 

 mon rivers in the north, and their feeders, or he would never 

 compare a mountain burn to a sewer. 'A. Y.' will laugh at his 

 notion of alluvial deposits, addling of the ova deposited in 

 salmon spawning beds, and will tell Mr. B. why so. Natural 

 obstructions are not, generally speaking, the cause of the decrease 

 of salmon, but artificial ones, such as bag-nets, stake-nets, and 

 other poaching devices. The propagation of salmon by ' artifi- 

 cial spawning,' will be of little avail as long as the present 

 annihilating salmon fishery laws exist. I am glad that the ques- 

 tion of salmon is every day becoming a more public one, and I 

 shall next month write one or two essays on the subject. Signed 

 1 Ephemera.' " 



