MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 239 



Perhaps by giving premiums for catching them 

 they might be greatly thinned, and their tough 

 skins be tanned, or otherwise prepared, so as to be 

 applied to some use. Oil might be obtained partly 

 to pay for the trouble of taking this kind of fish; 

 and, lastly, they might be used as an article of 

 food. They were eaten formerly even by the 

 gentry: and why not make the attempt to apply 

 them to that purpose again ? Perhaps, by pickling 

 or drying them, and by other aids of cookery, 

 they might prove good and wholesome; for every 

 animal in season is so, which, when out of season, 

 is quite the reverse. 



If the parent fishes of the salmo tribe were pro- 

 tected, the fry would soon be seen to swarm in 

 incredible numbers, and perhaps a pair of them 

 would spawn more than all the anglers from .the 

 source to the mouth of any river could fairly 

 catch in one season. Having from a boy been an 

 angler, it is with feelings painfully rankling in 

 my mind that I live in dread (from hints already 

 given) of this recreation being abridged or 

 stopped. Angling has from time immemorial 

 been followed, and ought to be indulged in un- 

 checked by arbitrary laws, as the birthright of 

 everyone, but particularly of the sedentary and 

 the studious. It is cruel to think of debarring 

 the fair angler, by any checks whatever; the 

 salmon fishers may, indeed, begrudge to see such 

 fill his creel with a few scores of the fry; because 

 what is taken might in a short time return to them 

 as full-grown salmon (for all fish, as well as birds, 

 return to the same places where they were bred); 

 but, for reasons before-named, this selfishness 

 should not be attended to for a moment, and 



