DECAY OF SALMON. 121 



was going far ahead of the breeding — before any blame 

 could be imputed to fixed or standing nets, will be found 

 in whatever portion of the Tweed statistics given above 

 is of older date than 1824. And the facts from Tweed 

 we have found to correspond with those from other 

 rivers. 



Statements which it may be necessary to touch in 

 passing, have been put forth to the eflfect that the net- 

 fishing within the Tweed was not so severe nine or ten 

 years ago as it had been twenty or thirty years before ; 

 that is, before the period of the general decline. That 

 fact, however, does not necessarily mean more than that 

 the cause preceded the efiect. Then, if some stations were 

 abandoned, it still remained true that every station that 

 would pay was still fished to the utmost, and that, owing 

 to the rise in price, the number of fish that made a pay- 

 ing station was much smaller than formerly. Moreover, 

 is there not a good deal in the fact that aU but one or 

 two of the lower fisheries of the Tweed are now in the 

 hands of the same lessees, and that, where fish can be 

 got at any of several stations, they work only what 

 stations seem necessary, and do not set their right hand 

 to compete with their left ? 



Some peculiar circumstances in the history of the 

 Tay furnish us with demonstrative evidence of the serious 

 consequences of an increase in the frequency or efficiency 

 of net-and-coble fishing. About 1835, there came into 

 operation an Act, called the Tay Navigation Act, one 

 effect of which was, by the removal of obstructions, to 

 give, on the whole, increased facilities for the working of 

 the nets on the fisheries within tideway. The following 



