238 MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 



as of great importance to them, as well as that of 

 keeping the river as pure as possible on account 

 of the fish. 



Should the evils attendant upon weirs and dams, 

 and other matters, be rectified, then the next neces- 

 sary step to be taken should be the appointment 

 of river conservators and vigilant guards to protect 

 the kipper, or spawning fish, from being killed 

 while they are in this sickly and imbecile state. 

 They are then so easily caught, that, notwithstand- 

 ing they are very unwholesome as food, very great 

 numbers are taken in the night, which are eaten 

 by poor people, who do not know how pernicious 

 they are. But, should all these measures be found 

 not fully to answer public expectation, the time 

 now allowed for fishing might be shortened, and 

 in some years, if ever found necessary, the fishing 

 might be laid in for a season. 



The next important question for consideration, 

 is respecting what can be done to prevent the 

 destruction of salmon on their first entering a 

 river, and while they are in full perfection, by their 

 most powerful and most conspicuously destructive 

 enemy, the porpoise. 



I have seen a shoal of porpoises, off Tynemouth, 

 swimming abreast of each other, and thus occupy- 

 ing a space of apparently more than a hundred 

 yards from the shore, seawards, and crossing the 

 mouth of the river, so that no salmon could enter 

 it. They went backward and forward for more 

 than a mile, along shore, and with such surprising 

 rapidity that, in their course, they caused a foam 

 to arise, like the breakers of the sea in a storm. 

 Might not a couple of steam packets, with strong 

 nets, sweep on shore hundreds of these at a time r 



