SALMON LEGISLATION. 15*7 



the lower proprietors, hoping to make powerful friends 

 without cost or even with profit to themselves, made no 

 serious opposition. And they have had their reward. 

 Poaching has immensely diminished, and the productive- 

 ness and value of the fisheries generally have greatly 

 increased. The Tweed was benefited, and an example 

 set which other rivers have siace adopted with improve- 

 ments and extensions. 



The main object, however, of the Tweed Bill of 1857 

 was not to alter the close-time, but to suppress an evil 

 local in its peculiar form, but existing elsewhere in 

 other and worse forms ; and this object was proposed to 

 be accomplished on a principle equally applicable to all 

 similar cases. From time immemorial there had existed 

 in the lower or tidal portions of the river Tweed a 

 species of engine called a steU-net, thus described in a 

 paper read to the Newcastle antiquaries by the late 

 Mr. Eobert Weddel of Berwick : — " The steU-net is rowed 

 into the river in a semicircular shape. A rope attached 

 to one end of it is held by the fisherman on shore, and to 

 the other extremity is attached an anchor, which is fas- 

 tened in the bed of the river. The fishermen in the boat 

 then go to near the centre of the net on the outside of it, 

 and take hold of it, and when they either feel fish strike 

 against the net, or see them approach within its reach, 

 they give notice to the men on shore, and while the 

 latter haul in their end of the net, the men in the boat 

 hoist the anchor, release the net, and bring it on shore." 

 Obviously this engine largely partook of the nature of a 

 fixture or "bar," remaining stationary across the path of 

 the fish till a capture was made ; and, as in the case of 



