120 SALMONIA. [FIFTH DAT. 



years ago,, when the cruives were a mile higher up, 

 then you might have enjoyed fishing. There were 

 eight or ten pools of the finest character possible for 

 angling, where a fisherman of my acquaintance has 

 hooked thirty fish in a morning. The river was then 

 perfect, and it might easily be brought again into the 

 same state : but even as it is now, with this single 

 good pool and this second tolerable one, I know no 

 place where I could, in the summer months, be so 

 secure of sport as here certainly no where in Great 

 Britain. 



POIET. I have often heard the Tay and the Tweed 

 vaunted as salmon rivers. 



HAL. They were good salmon rivers, and are still 

 very good, as far as the profit of the proprietor is 

 concerned ; but, for angling, they are very much 

 deteriorated. The net fishing, which is constantly 

 going on, except on Sundays and in close time, 

 suffers very few fish to escape; and a Sunday's 

 flood offers the sole chance of a good day's sport, 

 and this only in particular parts of these rivers.* 

 I remember the Tweed and the Tay in a far better 

 state. The Tweed, in the late Lord Somerville's time, 



* [It is stated by Mr. Young, in his valuable little treatise, 

 " Natural History of the Salmon," that in 1812, when stake nets were 

 in full operation at the mouth of the Tay, the rents of the whole of 

 that river above Newburgh had fallen to the sum of 5,1 00. ; and 



