RESULTS OF SALMON MARKING 17 
render the weekly close time inoperative. But it 
should be borne in mind that a proportion of each 
run of fish is essential to the proper maintenance of 
a suitable breeding stock in any river. In operating 
upon the stock of salmon in the sea, however, we 
are drawing upon a larger supply ; we are not catch- 
ing definite runs of fish which are going to breed in 
the near future, but are catching fish which are 
moving off and on, or along, the coast. Some of 
them may be on their way to a river, many of them 
are not, but are fish living in the sea. The influence 
of such fishing upon the breeding stock is small as 
compared with the influence of the river net, and the 
fish so caught and marketed are in the finest con- 
dition possible. From statistics showing the results 
of different methods of regulating salmon fishing, as 
practised in the past not only in Scotland but also 
in Norway, there is, moreover, ample proof that the 
sea rather than the river is the place for the net. 
T am aware that in England this view is regarded 
by many as the rankest heresy. The English Act 
of 1861 practically abolished coast netting in that 
country, but permitted the pernicious policy of fish- 
ing rivers not only by nets but by various forms of 
fixed engine. A complete reversal of this policy has 
been found efficacious in restoring depleted salmon 
fisheries elsewhere (when other contributing agencies 
have not also to be dealt with) and is, by all argu- 
ments in the case, the sound course to follow. To 
capture 15,000 to 18,000 salmon on the coast of a 
single Scottish district, where the breeding stock is 
maintained by a well-stocked river now all but 
