SALMON 43 



the biennial period of 1838 and 1839 : it is of gold, 

 and of the intrinsic value of sixty guineas. 



The importance of his proof is immense ; for the 

 Parrs not having been before considered to be young 

 Salmon, have not been hitherto protected by the 

 law beyond the short period in which they assume 

 their silver dress, and thus have been killed by 

 hundreds of thousands, by the multitude of boys 

 and men who angle in the various tributary burns 

 and rivers that pour their waters into the Tweed. 



Mr. John Wilson says, in his evidence before the 

 Select Committee, taken in 1824 " I have seen 

 from my own window upwards of seventy or eighty 

 people angling within the distance of half a mile on 

 the Tweed." Then there is the Tiviot ; the Adder, 

 comprising the White Adder and Black Adder ; the 

 Till, the Eden, the Kale, the Oxnam, the Jed, the 

 Ale, the Rule, the Slitrig, the Gala, the Carter, the 

 Borthwick, the Leader, the Ettrick, the Yarrow, 

 the Lyne, the Eddlestone, the Manor, the Quhair, 

 with many smaller burns and mountain streams. 

 In floods Salmons enter and spawn in most of these 

 rivers, if not in all of them ; at the subsiding of the 

 waters some of them fall back, and some are left 

 nearly dry, and easily captured. It is ordained by 

 nature that the Parr should in these cases impregnate 

 such ova as have been deposited, perhaps because 

 he is not so easily discovered, or such an object of 

 attraction as a Salmon. What an ample space the 

 above streams present for the destruction of the 

 fry ! And not only are they killed by the rod, 

 each urchin, perhaps, taking eight or ten dozen a 



