DECAY OP SALMON. 119 



earliness or lateness at which the fish begin to spawn ; 

 if the reference is to the earliness or lateness of the period 

 at which fishing can be profitably and providently begun, 

 a more accurate description would be " short-seasoned" 

 and "long-seasoned." There is another sense, too, in 

 which these epithets would apply ; rivers differ greatly 

 in the length of their spawning seasons, as well as of 

 their proper fishing seasons — those which are late in 

 getting a supply of clean fish in the beginning of the 

 legal fishing season being generally late also as to the 

 end, though not as to the beginning, of the spawning 

 season. In Tweed, for instance, the spawning begins 

 about the same time as in other rivers, but continues 

 much longer. For these differences several causes could 

 be suggested : such as differences in the distances of the 

 spawning-beds from the sea, and in the amount of 

 natural obstacles to ascent ; but it is enough for present 

 purposes to know that such is the fact, and that it is a 

 fact which has received but little attention in the making 

 of laws, either old or new. At the same time, there are 

 some considerable practical difficulties in the way of 

 having a close-time varied for various rivers ; and the 

 main facts that great evil has been caused by too long 

 and too late fishing, and that there has been a want of 

 variety as to legal seasons, have been to some extent 

 acknowledged by the recent Acts, which shorten the fish- 

 ing season as a whole, and give the Commissioners very 

 considerable power as to varying the period of opening 

 or closing. Theoretically, indeed, the close times of the 

 English rivers had been from old times endlessly varied 

 under local Acts, and under a general Act giving cer- 



