94 THE SALMON. 



As soon as we get into the present century, we read 

 no more of the great abundance and cheapness of salmon. 

 The Kev. James Hall, of London, who wrote, about 1805, 

 Travels in Scotland by an Unusual Route, says of 

 Queensferry on the Forth :— " There is a salmon-fishery 

 near here, which is often extremely productive ; but this 

 species of food is generally too dear to be used by the 

 common people. Our forefathers, who cared little for 

 salmon, and thought it so unwholesome that there was 

 generally a clause inserted in indentures in Scotland, 

 that apprentices should not have salmon set before them 

 above three times a week, were not active in catching 

 them. But matters are the reverse now. Fisheries on 

 the rivers, as well as the sea-coasts of Scotland, are more 

 and more becoming an object of concern ; and nets, 

 boats, and casks, and fishers are almost everywhere to 

 be seen." The same writer tells a story about two 

 proprietors on the Ythan in Aberdeenshire having been, 

 about fifty years before, joint-proprietors of a right of 

 ferry and a right of fishing, producing about £12 a year 

 each, and one of t^em successfully proposing to give up 

 his share of the ferry on getting the whole of the fishery 

 — a bargain which, when Hall wrote, had resulted in the 

 owner of the fishery getting £500 or £600 a year, while 

 the owner of the ferry was stiU getting only the old £12. 

 Hall also mentions that the Duke of Gordon's (now 

 Duke of Eichmond's) fisheries on the Spey, which had 

 shortly before been let at £1500, were then let on lease 

 at £5000 a year. 



The old and familiar story told by Francks, and 

 almost all other travellers, and even in om' own days told 



