128 THE SALMON. 



greater age, and therefore of more knowledge of the 

 world, even the fishermen cannot tell — flies, not ahng 

 the leader, but back from it, and so greatly increases his 

 chances of escape. Now, look at the above Table of the 

 produce of the Tweed from 1811 downwards, and it will 

 be seen that the average proportion of trouts to salmon, 

 during the earliest quinquennial period comprised in it, 

 was as three to four ; in the later quinquennial period, 

 as four to one ! In the first year included in the return 

 (which we have ascertained to have shown the same pro- 

 portions as several years preceding it), we see 38,500 

 salmon to 12,400 trouts, or more than three salmon to 

 one trout : in 1856, 30,597 trouts to 4885 salmon, or 

 more than six trouts to one salmon ! This immense 

 change in the proportion between the kind of fish that 

 the fixed nets spare, and the kind that they capture, is 

 of obvious significancy. 



In further illustration of this curious fact, we are 

 enabled to ^tate with precision the proportion of aU the 

 three divisions of the salmon kind taken in different 

 descriptions of nets in and near the Tweed, on the aver- 

 age of the last four years in the above table. For every 

 100 salmon, the stake and bag nets five mUes from the 

 river took 234 grilse and only 30 trouts; the fisheries 

 on the sea-shore close to the river mouth, for every 100 

 salmon took 293 grilse and 99 trouts; but on entering 

 the river, the proportion up to Berwick Bridge was to 

 every 100 salmon 378 grilse and 451 trouts. In other 

 words, the shore-nets took more than three salmon for 

 every trout ; the nets within the river took four and a 

 half trouts for every salmon. 



