THE NEW ART OF BREEDING FISH. 129 



cord the remedy required. " Salmo " mentions the 

 large amount of fry and smolts to be seen in even 

 tolerably good salmon rivers, and how few of them 

 return as grilse. How can they ? It is not gene- 

 rally made penal to kill salmon fry. I know of no 

 trial for the offence, except one that took place last 

 year before a meeting of magistrates at Worcester. 

 Yet not far from that town they are captured whole- 

 sale, and served up at the inns as a delicious plat, 

 under the name of " lastsprings." In the Mon- 

 mouthshire Wye they are caught by bushels, and so 

 they are in every Irish river with which I am ac- 

 quainted. I have seen urchins on the Suir, county 

 Waterford, and in the Lee, county Cork, catch them 

 by scores with the artificial fly, which they take with 

 extreme avidity. Hundreds of thousands of them 

 are destroyed by eel-traps and at mill-dams, and 

 there is at present no help for it. I believe that 

 many persons are not aware that salmon fry is young 

 salmon. They think them trout, and, whilst slay- 

 ing them, a,re not aware of the mischief they are 

 doing. The Reverend author of the " Erne ; its 

 Legends and its Fisheries," mentions in that inter- 

 esting work that he used to see, near Ballyshannon, 

 hundreds of boys " whipping '' for salmon fry, and 

 no one durst interfere with them for fear of parental 

 vengeance. All this must be stopped. The coming 

 season will be an abundant salmon one ; and the fol- 

 lowing better. We are now beginning a real salmon 

 agitation ; and 



6* 



