268 OUT OF DOORS. 



made so as to sweep the whole breadth of the stream, 

 and to entangle even fishes of a few inches in length. 



As to the fixed impediments, their name and struc- 

 ture is legion. ' Weirs,' or barriers, are made of timber, 

 or even faggots, and so constructed as to intercept 

 almost every fish as it tries to make its way along the 

 stream. ' A Devonshire faggot weir,' writes a corres- 

 pondent of the ' Field ' newspaper, ' for thorough im- 

 passability, in some ninety-five days out of every 

 hundred, almost baffles description : extending the 

 whole breadth of the river, staked, ruddled, stumped, 

 and twisted, leaving out long bushy ends down stream, 

 partially filled up with large stones, often some ten 

 or fifteen feet wide at the top is so admirably con- 

 structed for stopping even a minnow, that the whole 

 stream drains and percolates through this mass of 

 bushes. In many places a London lady could, with 

 little trouble, walk over dry shod.' The same writer, 

 after dilating on the many impediments placed in the 

 way of these migratory fish, proceeds to remark that in 

 hot weather, and after a dry spring, the young salmon 

 perish in vast quantities while trying to force their way 

 through the mazes of the brushwood, and taint the air 

 around with their decaying bodies. 



Water-mills are notoriously employed for the illegal 

 capture and destruction of the salmon, both in its early 

 stages and during the fence months ; and the destruc- 

 tion of ' foul ' fish, as they are then called, is almost 

 beyond belief. 



