i6o 



The regulations in Scotland for salmon fishings are, many 

 of them, the same as in England. 



(1) Thus there is an annual winter close time ; which 

 in Ireland continues for 168 days, in England for 154 days, 

 in Scotland for 170 days. In the open season of summer, 

 there is a weekly close time ; lasting in Ireland 48 hours, 

 in England 42 hours, in Scotland 36 hours. 



(2) No fixed nets are allowed in our rivers or in our 

 estuaries near the river mouths ; and no nets with meshes 

 smaller than one and three-quarter inches, so as to avoid 

 catching parr, smolts, or small river trouts. 



(3) Pollution of rivers, to such an extent as to kill 

 salmon in them, is nominally prohibited ; but the clauses 

 in all the Scotch Acts are so weakly worded, that I don't 

 know of any case in Scotland, except one, where fishery 

 proprietors or Fishery Boards have been able to enforce 

 these prohibitions for the protection of fish. 



No power was by these Acts even attempted to be given 

 to prevent pollution. It is only after a fish has been killed 

 by it, that action is allowed ; and even then it is exceedingly 

 difficult, indeed, almost impossible, to show, that when a 

 fish is found dead, it died from the effects of poison which 

 came from any particular mill. 



The Tweed Fishery Act has existed for 26 years, but 

 it was only last year that a case occurred, where the Com- 

 missioners ventured to exercise their powers in this respect. 

 Noxious matters were discharged from a mill, which 

 killed every kind of fish in the river for two or three miles 

 below the mill. There was a general outcry at such an 

 outrage. A leading Edinburgh angling club endeavoured to 

 prosecute, but was baffled by a technical defect in the word- 

 ing of the Scotch Freshwater Fisheries Act. The Tweed 

 Salmon Commissioners, however, called on the county Pro- 



