6 SALMON-FISHERY OF SCOTLAND. 



have no manner of control. When destruction, therefore, is 

 pushed beyond a certain limit scarcity must ensue. It is thus 

 that Nature punishes us for the abuse of the benefits she con- 

 fers upon us ; it is thus that our rapacity comes, in time, to 

 defeat its own objects. No animals are so easily destroyed as 

 salmon, because none are brought, by their habits and instincts, 

 so much within our power, in returning to the rivers ; and 

 hence there is a corresponding danger that destruction may be 

 carried further than the generative powers of nature can re- 

 place. 



Formerly, when the modes of fishing in use were less exter- 

 minating than at present, such destruction could not, or at least 

 did not, take place ; and, accordingly, salmon were then plen- 

 tiful both in England and in Scotland. Servants of farmers 

 used to stipulate with their masters that they should not be 

 obliged to eat salmon except on a certain number of days in 

 the week. How different is this from the state of matters at 

 present, when salmon, instead of being a common article of 

 food for the poor, have become a luxury for the rich, and when 

 the supply and the demand frequently vary in an inverse pro- 

 portion ! The cause, however, is abundantly obvious. As the 

 population increased in numbers and in wealth, the destruc- 

 tion of the fish became greater than the powers of nature could 

 replace or restore, and scarcity was the necessary consequence. 



In Scotland, previous to the last thirty or forty years, the 

 quantity of salmon caught being greater than an immediate 

 market could be found for, they were salted; but the price of 

 salt-fish was then so low as to offer no inducement to over- 

 fishing ; so that the rivers kept full of breeding fish, while 

 the aggregate amount sent to market continued nearly the 

 same. It is deserving of notice that, in many rivers, the salmon- 

 fishery used then to be nearly over by the end of May ; in 

 some of the late rivers indeed it continued somewhat longer ; 

 but the salmon-vats being by this time generally full, the 

 grilses were deemed of so little importance that one-half of 

 them was not destroyed. Yet, at the period referred to, 1000 

 barrels of salmon were exported from fishings which do not 

 now produce one-third of that quantity. But there was then, 



