46 SALMON-FISHERY OF SCOTLAND. 



"The stake-nets begin to fall off materially as the season goes on. 

 The fish do not visit them half so much when the spawning season 

 approaches, as they do during the summer months. Towards the 

 end of August the stake-net fishing falls off very materially. In 

 September we catch almost nothing. The fish then keep the chan- 

 nel or deep water." 



Now, we have abeady stated, that there is not a salmon 

 taken, either at a stake-net or river fishing, at any period of 

 the season, but would, if not taken, become a spawning fish — the 

 whole, without a single exception, being charged with roe or 

 milt, increasing in size as the season advances. If one com- 

 pares the roe of a salmon caught in a stake-net on the first of 

 May, with the roe of another salmon taken on the same day, at 

 a river fishing, they will be found to be exactly in the same 

 state : if the experiment be repeated on the first of August or 

 September, the same result will appear. There is no difference 

 whatever between them — both, therefore, as we have said, if 

 not killed, would become breeders or spawning fish ; but the 

 stake-net fishers, in order to impose upon ignorant persons, en- 

 deavour to make it be supposed that only the last fish which 

 come in would be breeders. The reason why their sea-engines 

 kill few or no fish in September is obvious ; nearly the whole 

 of the shoals of the season have by that time passed on, and 

 there are no more fish to kill. Mr HaUiday could not, indeed, 

 have stated a fact more confirmatory of our statements in regard 

 to the migratory movements of the fish, or that could tend more 

 completely to contradict his own doctrine ; for if salmon were 

 always swimming about the shores, like haddocks, and if the 

 sea, as he says, abounds with them, they would be caught in 

 his sea stake-nets in September, as well as in June or July ; 

 but they are only caught, or rather intercepted in them at the 

 periods when the shoals of the season are passing on to the 

 rivers. After the shoals have passed, and there are no more 

 fish to intercept, he, poor innocent, thinlcs they then keep a 

 different track. 



Of the grand migratory movements of the salmon tribes, 

 from the ocean, along the coast, to the rivers, shoal succeeding 

 shoal, the stake-net fishers seem to have no conception. They 



