APPENDIX. ] 05 



quainted. The substitution of a better-disciplined and 

 more numerous river police for the protective force 

 hitherto employed by them, has certainly the features of a 

 restorative procedure; but, unassisted by other measures, 

 I am far from being sanguine of its success. 



" I have not yet made any remarks relative to the ex- 

 pediency of shifting the hibernal fence season in regard to 

 Tweed : I am called upon, however, to do so' by what was 

 lately, and is possibly still in agitation among the upper 

 proprietors, countenanced as their views happen to be by 

 the author of the article in the * Edinburgh Review/ I 

 mean the extension of the period of liberty enjoyed by the 

 rod-fishers (a period which at present stretches from the 

 15th of February to the 8th of November), over the entire 

 twelvemonth. Were no apology for this movement to be 

 found in the conduct of the lower proprietors, I would 

 farther without scruple affirm that the folly that looks 

 forward to its success is only surpassed by the selfishness 

 that dictates it. The extension required, and which in 

 the main will favour the true sportsman, is that of the 

 fence season during the vernal months ; postpone the 

 opening of the river above its estuary until the middle of 

 March, and what is saved to Tweed in the way of giving 

 opportunity for the largest description of salmon baggits 

 to spawn and kelts to escape is beyond reckoning. I re- 

 collect well the occasion (it happened not more than seven 

 or eight years ago), when old Rob Kerso of the Traws, at 

 the opening of the fishing in the middle of February, 

 captured with his net in the course of a single night no 

 fewer than eighty salmon, almost all of which were bag- 

 gits on the eve of spawning, unwholesome and useless as 

 food, but as a breeding stock of very great importance. 

 By means of the rod, constant and extensive massacres of 

 these fish take place during the first four weeks of the 

 season, and although a clean salmon is occasionally taken, 

 the event is so rare that the local newspapers generally 

 seize upon it as a matter worth recording. 



tc But those who would witness the salmon spearing of 



our degenerate day must not hope to find much food for 



the fine arts, or to wax sublimely poetical under the 



" cruzie;" the light and its reflections are all well enough, 



I 



