50 SALMON-FISHERY OF SCOTLAND. 



stake-net fishers, whose authority will not he disputed, states 

 in the Committee, — 



" In the whole course of my practice in fishing, I have always, 

 fovmd, in dry weather in summer, a greater quantity of fish taken in 

 the nets placed for the purpose of catching them with the EBB-tide, 

 than in wet weather. At the time the stake-nets at the Newhy 

 fisheries are most successful, the river Annan is at that time so very 

 small, that the fish in general would not enter it, and most of them 

 are taken in the stake-nets with the e66-tide." 



Here, then, we have the fact fully accounted for, out of the 

 mouth of this stake-net fisher himself. If the fish intended, as 

 he supposed, to return to the sea, they would not keep floating 

 backwards and forwards near the shore, within the range of his 

 machinery ; they woiild go out at once into deep water like 

 the kelts. There is not, therefore, a single fact or circumstance 

 stated by these men, that will be found, on investigation, to be 

 contrary to the principles of the migratory system, or to the 

 instincts and habits of salmon, as we have represented them ; 

 or which can, in the smallest degree, confirm their own hypo- 

 thesis — an hypothesis formed of a whole string of absurdities, 

 every one of which is at variance with the other. 



The destruction of these flowing and ebbing fish towards the 

 end of summer, by stake-nets, we consider an evil of great 

 magnitude with reference to the fishery, and one of the causes 

 of its decline. In the early months the fish are keen in enter- 

 ing the rivers. If they were equally so at the conclusion of 

 the season, as they always become, as we said before, scarce 

 towards close-time, there would be a danger that there would 

 be a scarcity of breeders, to guard against which nature seems 

 to have intended those flowing and ebbing fish as a corps de 

 reserve for that purpose — as many of them would not enter the 

 rivers till they were unfit to be taken ; but all these are now 

 destroyed by the stake-nets, by which means the rivers are 

 denuded of the necessary quantity of breeding fish — and so has 

 fared the fishery. This was not the case formerly, when no 

 other fishing implements were in use than the " rude appara- 

 tus" of our forefathers — and accordingly salmon were then, it 

 is admitted by all, in great abundance. 



The stake-net owners further tell us, that their engines save 



