Book II. INLAND FISHERIES. 631 



Orkney and Shetland Islands, these fish are sent up to the London maiket in ice ; and 

 when the season is at its height, and the catch more than can be taken off hand fresh, 

 they are then salted, pickled, or dried, for winter consumption at home, and for the 

 foreign markets. Perhaps the fishery of the Tweed is the first in point of the quantity 

 caught, which is sometimes quite astonishing, several hundreds being taken at a single 

 draught of the net. 



3886. The salmon as ihey are caught are packed in ice, and sent away in vessels well 

 known under the name of Berwick smacks. Formerly it was all pickled and kitted, after 

 being boiled, and sent to London under tlie name of Newcastle salmon ; but the present 

 mode has so raised the value of the fish, as nearly to have banished this article of food 

 from the inhabitants in the environs of the fishery, except as an expensive luxury. Within 

 memory, salted salmon formed a material article of economy in all the farm-houses of 

 the vale of Tweed, insomuch that in-door servants often bargained that they should 

 not be obliged to take more than two weekly meals of salmon. It could then be bought 

 at 2s. the stone, of nineteen pounds' weight j it is now never below 12s., often 36s., and 

 sometimes two guineas. 



3887. With respect to the improvement (^ salmon fisheries, admitting that the individiial fish which are 

 bred in any river instinctively return to the same from the sea, the most obvious means of increase in any 

 particular river is that of suffering a sufficient number of grown salmon to go up to the spawning grounds ; 

 protecting them while there, and guarding the infant shoals in their passage thence to the ocean. Even 

 admitting that those which are bred within the British Islands, and escape the perils that await them, 

 return to these islands, it is surely a matter of some importance, viewed in a public light, to increase and 

 protect the breed. It is a well ascertained fact, that salmon pass up toward the spawning grounds of 

 different rivers at different seasons or times of the year ; consequently, no one day in the year can be 

 properly fixed by law to give them free passage up rivers in general. Perhaps every river of the island 

 should have its particular day of liberation, which ought to be some weeks before the known close of the 

 spawning season in a given river. 



o8.S8. In a dry season, and for want of flood water to assist them in their extraordinary efforts to gain 

 the higher branchlets of i river, the salmon will spawn in its lower deeper parts. But here, it is probable, 

 few of their progeny escape the voracity offish of prey, which inhabit deep waters. While, in the shal- 

 low pebbly streams, at the heads of which they delight to lay their spawn, the infant shoal is free from 

 danger; and it is for this security, no doubt, that the instinct of the parents leads them to the greatest 

 attainable height, at the peril of their own lives. Thus far, as to the protection of the parents, and their 

 infant spawnlings ; it now remains to guard these from their native streamlets to the sea. 



S88y. The enemies of young salmon are fish of prey, as the pike, and trouts of size ; both of which ought 

 to be considered as vermin, in rivers down which samlets are wont to pass. 



3890. The heron is another destructive enemy of young salmon, especially in the higher branches of 

 rivers ; yet we see these common destroyers nursed up in heronries. But more wisely might the cormo. 

 rant be propagated and protected. The heron is tenfold more destructive of fresh-water fish, than is the 

 cormorant 



3891. The otter is a well known enemy to fish, but more so to grown salmon than to their young. 



3892. The angler is a species of vermin which is much more injurious than the otter to young salmon ; 

 during minor floods, when the young " fry " are attempting to make their escape downward to the sea, 

 the angler counts his victims by the score ; and might boast of carrying home, in his wicker basket, a boat 

 load of salmon. The net fisher is still more mischievous. But most of all the miller, who takes them in 

 his mill traps, by the bushel, or the sack, at once. 



3893. The porpoise, the most audacious marine animal of prey in northern latitudes, is said to be a great 

 devourer of salmon and other fish on the sea-coast, and in narrow seas and estuaries. It is asserted by 

 tliose who have had opportunities of ascertaining the fact, that they not only destroy salmon in the nar- 

 row seas, and open estuaries, but that they have been seen guarding the mouth of a river, in the salmon 

 season, and destroying them in numbers, as they attempted to enter. If these are facts, it might be worth 

 while for the proprietors of fisheries, or perhaps government, to offer rewards for catching this animal, and 

 thus lessen their number, on the same principles as wolves were extirpated. The author of The British 

 Naturalist affirms, from his own experience, that the seal is very easily rendered as docile and affectionate 

 as the dog, and that it might be rendered as useful to man in fishing, as the dog is in shooting and 

 hunting. 



S894. If by wise regulations, Jormed into a law^ the present supply of salmon could be doubled, the ad- 

 vantage to the community would be of some imjwrtance. When we see the great disparity of the supply, 

 between the rivers of the north, and those of the south, of this island, it might not be extravagant to 

 imagine, that the supply from the rivers of England might be made five or ten times what it is at present 

 One of the first steps toxvards regulations of this nature is to endeavour to ascertain the catises of this 

 disparity, and to profit by such as can be subjected to human foresight and control. Accurate exa- 

 minations of the Tay, the Tweed, the Trent, and the Thames, would, perhaps, be found adequate to thia 

 purpose. 



3895. There are various modes of taking salmon, some of which may be mentioned ; 

 though it is foreign from our plan to enter into the art of fishing, which is practised by a 

 distinct class of men, created, as it may be said, more by circumstances than regular 

 apprenticeship or study. The situations in which salmon first attract the particular 

 attention of fishermen, are narrow seas, estuaries, or mouths of rivers ; in which they 

 remain some time, more or less, probably, according to their states of forwardness with 

 respect to spawning ; and in which various devices are practised to take them. 



3896. In the wide estuary of Solway Frith, which separates Cumberland and Dumfriesshire, several 

 ingenious methods are practised, two of which are entitled to particular notice here Besides the open 

 channels worn by the Esk, the Eden, and other rivers and brooks that empty themselves into this com- 

 mon estuary, the sands, which compose its base and are left dry at low water, are formed into ridges and 

 valleys, by the tides and tempestuous weather. The lower ends of these valleys, or false channels, are 

 wide and deep, opening downward towards the sea ; their upper ends grow narrower and shallower, 

 terminating in points, at the tops of the sand-banks. As the tide flows upward, the salmon, either in 

 search of food, or the channel of the river to which they are destined, enter these valleys or " lakes : " but 

 finding, on the turn of the tide, that their passage farther upward is stopped, they naturally return with 

 it into deep water ; where they remain until the next tide. The manorial proprietors of these sand-banks 

 having discovered this fact have, from time immemorial, run lines of nets, during the fishing season, 

 across the lower ends of these lakes or valleys, half a mile, or more, perhaps, in width ; the nets being 



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