32 FIELD-NOTES FOR THE YEAR. CH. XXII. 



This is owing chiefly to the constant warfare carried 

 on against them by the salmon fishers, who either 

 destroy them or frighten them away as far as they 

 can from their fishing stations. 



On the neck of land at which we have now arrived 

 there is a hut inhabited during the season by a 

 couple of salmon fishers, whose business it is to 

 attend to the stake-net, which stretches out from 

 near their hut into the sea. A lonely hfe these men 

 must lead, from March to September, varied only 

 by visits fi-om or to their comrades, who are stationed 

 at the depot of ice at Findhorn, where all the fish 

 caught are sent to be kept till a sufficient quantity 

 is ready to load one of their quick-sailing vessels for 

 London. But if their Hfe is lonely it is not idle, as 

 the exposed situation of their nets renders them 

 liable to constant injury from wind and sea. At 

 every low tide the men scramble and wade to the 

 end or trap part of the net to take out the fish 

 which have been caught, and to scrape off" the net 

 the quantity of sea-weed that has adhered to it 

 during the last tide. Although they do not always 

 find salmon, they are seldom so unlucky as not to 

 catch a number of goodly-sized flounders, which 

 fall to the share of the fishermen themselves ; and 

 perhaps once or twice in the season a young seal 

 gets entangled and puzzled in the windings of the 



