APPENDIX XIII. 349 



that we are beginning to overfish. We already know, in 

 the case of the salmon, that the greed of man, when 

 thoroughly excited, can extirpate, for mere immediate gain, 

 any animal, however prolific it may be. Some of the 

 British game birds have so narrowly escaped destruction 

 that their existence, in anything like quantity, when set 

 against the armies of sportsmen who seek their annihila- 

 tion, is wonderful. 



The salmon has just had a very narrow escape from ex- 

 termination. It was at one time a comparatively plentiful 

 fish, that could be obtained for food purposes at an almost 

 nominal expense, and a period dating eighty years back is 

 thought to have been a golden age so far as the salmon 

 fisheries were concerned. But, in my opinion, it is more 

 than questionable if salmon, or indeed any of our sea or 

 river animals, ever were so magically abundant as has 

 been represented. At the time — a rather indefinite time, 

 however, ranging from the beginning to the end of the 

 last century, and frequently referred to by writers on the 

 salmon question — when farm servants were compelled to 

 eat of that fish more frequently than seemed good for 

 their stomachs, or when the country laird, visiting London, 

 ordered a steak for himself with "a bit o' saumon for the 

 laddie," and was thunderstruck at the price of the fish, 

 we must bear in mind, as a strong element of the ques- 

 tion, that there were few distant markets available ; it was 

 only on the Tweed, Tay, Severn, and other salmon streams, 

 that the salmon was really plentiful. 



No such regular commerce as that now prevailing was 

 carried on in fresh salmon at the period indicated. In 

 fact, properly speaking, there was no commerce beyond 

 an occasional despatch to London per smack, or the sale 

 of a few fish in country market-towns, and salmon has 

 been known to be sold in these places at so low a rate as 

 a penny or twopence a pound weight. Most of these 



