DESTRUCTION FOR FOOD 151 



So even in the reign of Robert Bruce we find statutes 

 forbidding the use of "fixed engines," and an Act of 1424 

 (James I) decreed 



that all cruives and yaires set in fresche watteris, quhair the sea filles and 

 ebbis, the quhilk destroyis the frie of all fisches be destroyed and put awaie 

 for ever mair. 



The Royal Commission on Salmon Fisheries in 1902 

 reached the same conclusion as to the definite results of 

 nets and fixed engines upon the fisheries of certain rivers. 

 The evidence is vague and contradictory, but it seems to 

 show that there is a gradual decrease in the numbers of 

 Salmon in the upper waters of some netted rivers and in the 

 estuaries of others, the latter point being strikingly indicated 

 by the decline in the number of applications for net fishing 

 licences in certain districts of England and Wales. Besides, 

 there is fairly clear evidence that in some areas the im- 

 migrant fishes are unable to reach the upper waters and the 

 spawning grounds until the nets are off, and that the 

 permanent or temporary removal of nets to allow easy access 

 to the river has resulted in improvement of the fisheries. 



It is not so much the actual numbers of immigrating 

 fishes destroyed by man that count, though this in itself 

 affects the stock of the river, but that many mature fishes 

 are prevented from reaching the spawning grounds to the 

 prejudice of the stock of future seasons. 



A result undoubtedly due, in part at any rate, to man's 

 interference can be seen in the general decline in the catch 

 of grilse, especially marked since the opening of the nine- 

 teenth century. At that time the catch of grilse in Tweed 

 alone was occasionally a hundred times greater than the 

 catch for the whole of Scotland to-day, and, wrote Mr W. L. 

 Calderwood in 1916, "in a period of twenty years it never 

 fell below a figure thirty times as great as the present day 

 catch for the whole of Scotland." The economic standing 

 of the Tweed fisheries gives a clear indication of the decline 

 due to destruction, for whereas in 1807 the rents of the 

 Tweed fishings amounted to ,15,766, in 1860 their value 

 had fallen to a little over ,4000. The accompanying 

 diagram illustrates the results of fifty years fishing at the 

 mouth of the Tweed by the Berwick Salmon Fisheries 

 Company. In the diagram the annual total catch, as well 



