FISHES. 587 
They are now very rare in those rivers. The coast of Picardy is 
well furnished, but they are rare in upper and lower Normandy. 
In Norway, especially in the district of Drontheim, the salmon 
fishery is conducted on a large scale on the sea-shore as well as in 
the interior waters. The Baltic is rich in salmon. Considerable 
fisheries are carried on in the waters of the Gulfs of Finland and 
Bothnia, as well as in the waters of Swedish Laponia. The takes 
vary greatly; in 1860 being much above the average throughout 
Great Britain; while in 1772 the fish were so scarce in the Tweed 
that it was believed they had gone off the coast. They invariably 
go to leeward with the wind, and have been caught roo miles 
off land. Salmon are in condition at various periods of the 
year, apparently not depending on the latitude of.the rivers. Thus, 
the Tay is one of the earliest rivers, while the north and south 
Esk are the latest, yet they debouch within a few miles of each 
other. It is the opinion of Mr. Joseph Johnston of Montrose 
(whose acknowledged fifty years’ practical experience carries weight 
with it in all parliamentary committees on this question) that the 
Stormontfield ponds, by artificially rearing the parr, render them 
more helpless when they commence river life on their own account. 
As a natural result, the death-ratio is enormously increased—cu? bono ? 
especially when the parr have only the option of leaving, and are not 
compelled to go out. We must, therefore, receive Dr. Bertram’s 
narrative, much as we respect his authority, with some reserve. The 
young will not grow, nor will a parr ever become a grilse, unless 
under given conditions ; it is therefore an easy matter to explain the 
anomaly.of a parr passing seaward becoming a four-pound grilse, 
while its twin-brother remaining in the breeding-pond is conditionally 
developed as only a half-ounce samlet, yet none the less a dwarfed 
grilse—the possibility of growth existing all the while, although it 
was not actively evoked by physical surroundings. 
The modes of procedure in salmon fishery are very various. 
Spearing with tridents, and liestering with a weighted hook by torch- 
light—‘“ burning the water,” as the Scotch have it—as well as trammel, 
wear, and cruive-wear fishing, are now prohibited. Legal fishing in 
rivers is confined to row nets, and fly and bait rod fishing, fixtures 
being illegal since 1810. Wear shot; a larger and heavier row-net 
placed at the meeting of the waters; stake, fly, and bag-nets are 
used in the open sea. The latter is most in vogue, the former being 
almost superseded by the fly. Fixtures on the sea coast were held 
to be legal in Lord Kintore’s case by the House of Lords in 1828, and 
continued so till the passing of the recent Act. By this Act all legal 
