DECAY OF SALMON. 127 



of having no estuary, but changing at once from river to 

 ocean. Passing over some attempts to erect fixed nets 

 within these limits, by taking advantage of the looseness 

 of the phrase " bar-nets," we go on to state that during 

 the period of years of which we have chiefly spoken, there 

 were not any fixed nets in the Tweed district, except 

 beyond the limits mentioned. Yet the number of salmon 

 and grilse taken in two small clusters of nets, occupying 

 only a few yards of beach, and removed along the open 

 shore of the German Ocean five miles from the river, 

 and from any run of water or indentation of coast in- 

 dicating its neighbourhood, used to be nearly one-half 

 of the whole number taken in Tweed ! 



It will be observed that our statement regarding 

 these fixed nets on the Tweed coast omits mention of 

 trouts {Salmo eriox) — and thereby hangs a strange, but, 

 on examination, significant fact. On an average of 

 twenty years, the number of trout taken annually in 

 the river was about equal to the take of grilse, and about 

 four times the take of salmon : in these coast-nets, on 

 the contrary, the take of trout used to reach only about 

 a ninth of the take of grUse, and a fourth of the take 

 of salmon. In other words, the net-and-coble took three 

 or four trouts for every salmon, while the fixed nets 

 took three or four salmon and nine or ten grilses for one 

 trout. The local fishermen explain the disparity by a 

 diflference in the habits or instincts of the two species 

 of fish. The salmon or grilse, when he strikes the leader 

 of the standing-net, follows it out into the trap or cham- 

 bers ; the trout — whether it is that he is naturally more 

 acute, or that, though of smaller size, he is ordinarily of 



