124 SALMONID^ OF BRITAIN. 



except in the close time, but little chance of escape ; and that obstructions are not 

 always removed or moderated. Thus the upper proprietors see but few fish, 

 excepting during the breeding season, when it is illegal to captui'e them. They 

 are, in a manner, " clucking hens," whose duties seem to be to take care the old 

 fishes are left undisturbed on the redds, that the eggs are hatched, the fry reared, 

 and to speed the parting guests as they descend to the sea, from whence nets, 

 obstructions, and pollutions in the lower portions of the river will most probably 

 prevent their ever re-ascending ; or else merely in sufficient numbers to maintain 

 a sufficient supply for the lower waters. Under these circumstances it can hardly 

 be a source of surprise if the breeding grounds are not strictly preserved : for the 

 rearing of salmon is commonly asserted to be done at the expense of the local fish, 

 which are residents of the upper waters. 



The value of the salmon fisheries in Scotland, and the rent paid for a few rivers 

 or fisheries, is recorded in the Report of the Parliamentary Covimittee on Salmon 

 Fisheries for 1824. The Beauly then rented for £1300 per annum; the greater 

 portion of the Tweed for £10,000; one fishery obtaining £1200. While a single 

 fishery on the Tay let for £1205, but the remainder of the others for £8000 per 

 annum. In a Parliamentary Retwm made in 1864 the name of each fishery, of its 

 owner, its value, and the mode of capturing the fish was recorded. Russel, in his 

 excellent treatise on the Salmon, 1864, referred to it as follows : — " As this is 

 the first attempt to procure official or authentic information as to the whole of the 

 Scotch fisheries, it is welcome as a beginning, but it has the rudeness and imper- 

 fection of a beginning. It both omits and mis-states. Many fisheries are not 

 included at all ; of nearly 700 fisheries named, the value of eighty, or nearly a 

 sixth of the whole, is not given."* As regards the produce of these fisheries, the 

 weight and the contents of each box of salmon sent from Scotland appears to 

 have varied at different periods. Thus in the Parliam,entary Report (for 1824) 

 already referred to, a witness speaking of the Tweed fisheries stated that prior to 

 1816 a box contained 6-J- stone of fish, but from 1816 and subsequently 8 stone at 

 least up to 1824, at which it continues now. 



Mr. Young {British Industries, 1877, p. 298) gave the number of boxes of 

 salmon sent from Scotland to Billingsgate from 1834 to 1875, and which he 

 observed averaged 11 2 lb. each in weight. Adding the numbers received up to 1 881, 

 we obtain the following results — a yearly average of 24,214 boxes of 1 cwt. each. 

 Duringthe first seven years the annual average was 26,107, during the second period 

 29,011, during the third, ending 1864, 18,210 ; during the fourth period from 1861 

 to 1869, 20,824 ; from 1869 to 1875, 24,478 ; and for six years ending 1881, 

 24,617 boxes. In the Fourth Annual Report of the Fishery Board for Scotland, the 

 estimated value of the salmon captured in that country, during 1885, was given 

 at £323,851. The causes which have led to the injury and in some cases to partial 

 but in others entire extermination of this valuable fish in certain rivers in Scot- 

 land have been already alluded to (see page 112 ante). A few years back the 

 Scotch Fisheries Improvement Association observed that there are seven counties in 

 Scotland with thirty-two rivers, which have ceased being frequented by salmon 

 owing to the obstructions or pollutions. 



Salmon, as has been already remarked, roam along the coast in search of food, 

 and when doing so swim close in shore, enabling them to be intercepted by means 

 of stationary engines during their journeys, as stake-nets or bag-nets, contri- 

 vances not sufficiently under control in Scotland, where the injury they do to the 

 fisheries is excessive,t and perhaps as good an instance as could be adduced is the 



* The total value of the Salmon Fisheries in 1864, for all Scotland, was set down at £52,615, 

 but Eussel remarked that the actual rental of three Scotch Fishery districts — ^the Tay, the Spey 

 and the twin rivers entering the sea at Aberdeen, amounted at that period to nearly £40,000 a 

 year. Mr. James Caird, the chief commissioner appointed to investigate the condition of the 

 British fisheries, in a letter dated March 6th, 1868, estimated the annual value of the river fisheries 

 of Scotland at £200,000, and in 1877 Mr. Archibald Young gave them at £250,000. 



t Dr. Sinclair, in his View of Dumfriesshire, 1811, gave some particulars with regard to the 

 fisheries, and the rents as they were thirty years previously, which was prior to the commence- 

 ment of trap-nets in the Solway. " The rents on the Scotch fishings amounted to £376 a year." 

 These were understood to have been paid for the ancient modes of fishing by half-nets, poke-nets, 



