Anniversary Address. 233 



our own Britisli Isles are to be found rivers, lakes, and a 

 coast line already stocked with the most edible species of 

 fish, and only requiring the application of scientific guidance 

 to further the breeding and growth of kinds most valued as 

 articles of food or domestic economy. Numerous useful 

 appliances, originating at home or abroad, have contributed 

 to enlighten our fishing population, and to foster a love for 

 an avocation fraught with danger and demanding a more 

 than ordinary share of hardihood and skill. Regard has 

 likewise been taken for the deplorable loss of life at sea, 

 which has occasionally denuded whole villages of their 

 male population, leaving hundreds of wido ws and fatherless 

 children upon the charity of the benevolent. A long and 

 carefully prepared essay by H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh, 

 read by his brother the Prince of Wales, before the Fishery 

 Commissioners, and several representatives from foreign 

 powers, furnished numerous statistics, more especially with 

 regard to our fishing population, and advocated that search- 

 ing inquiry should be instituted into the particulars of every 

 accident to fishermen at sea. 



It must be a yearly subject of interest to our Club to 

 watch the success of those great industries the Salmon and 

 Herring Fishings. The natural history of the former fish 

 and its congeners has been well studied by Tweedside 

 naturalists and sportsmen, who have, I believe, solved to 

 their satisfaction most of the difficulties and uncertainties, 

 at one time attached to the genus. Quoting from a para- 

 graph in the Newcastle Journal of the 15th September, the 

 last of the Tweed net fishing, I find that 

 " Since the commencement of February the catches have been 

 satisfactory in numbers. Salmon were scarcer than they were 

 last year, but grilse and trout have been rather more plentiful, 

 though less numerous than two years ago. The remarkable fea- 

 ture of the season was the early appearance of grilse, and their 

 continuance to a longer period than usual. Two salmon of 

 451bs each were the heaviest fish taken this season. At one 

 catch on the sands near to Goswick 600 fish were taken. A re- 

 flecting light has been tried on the Tweed, which has proved 

 somewhat successful in attracting fish near to the side." 



Dl 



