NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SALMON. 19 



him ? he is taken in a trap river, returning to the 

 sea ; starved by being imprisoned in a mill-stream ; 

 or pines to death for want of that element which 

 Providence has made necessary to his prosperity, 

 his increase, and his existence. 



Such is the true state of the salmon fisheries. 

 Will any reasonable man deny that a new law is 

 imperatively necessary to prevent the abuses which 

 have brought them to such a condition ? 



Little ingenuity is required ; common honesty 

 and common sense are capable of suggesting the 

 principal things which are ^necessary to be done. 

 Remove the obstructions and the fish-locks ; keep 

 the fish to the natural stream ; prevent all unsize- 

 able and unseasonable fish from being taken ; 

 protect them during the fence days, and let no 

 fish be taken but by the fair and legal nets, with 

 an attention to the minor points before adverted to, 

 and hereafter more particularly set forth, and we 

 soon shall have no reason to complain of the scarcity 

 of salmon, or fish of the salmon kind. I am tho- 

 roughly persuaded, as I shall hereafter endeavour 

 to demonstrate, that the scarcity of this fish does 

 not proceed from any natural cause whatever, but 

 entirely from one which may be easily and effec- 

 tually remedied. 



Note. About seventy or eighty years ago, 

 Sir Edward Seymour erected a hutch on a narrow 

 part of the Dart, about midway between Totness 

 bridge and the weir, for the purpose of taking all 

 the salmon in the river ; as none, or very few could 



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