SALMON-POACHING. 145 



tion. The leister, a sharp iron fork, was used on these occasions 

 with deadly power ; rude mirth and song were usually the order 

 of the night ; and the practice being illegal was not without a 

 spice of danger, or at least the chance of a ducking. Burning the 

 water, it must, however, be confessed, was more a picturesque 

 way of poaching than a means of adding legitimately to the pro- 

 duce of the fisheries as a branch of commere. It would have 

 been well for the salmon-fisheries had the arts of poaching never 

 extended beyond the rude practice here alluded to ; but now 

 poaching, as I have endeavoured to show, has become a business, 

 and countless thousands of the fish are still swept off the breed- 

 ing-beds and sold to dealers. Legislation on the salmon ques- 

 tion has of late been greatly extended, some powerful Acts of 

 Parliament haviog been passed for the better regulation of the 

 various British salmon-fisheries, and it is satisfactory to think 

 that much good has been achieved in consequence. 



It is recorded that at one time great hauls of salmon could 

 be taken either in the rivers of Scotland or Ireland, and that in 

 England salmon were also quite plentiful. One miraculous 

 draught is mentioned as having been taken out of the river 

 Thurso, on which occasion the enormous number of two thousand- 

 five hundred fish were captured. The discovery that fish packed 

 in ice would carry a long way without decaying, led, as was 

 to be expected, to so large a trade in fresh salmon between 

 Scotland and England, that it at once effected a great rise in the 

 price of the fish. High prices had their usual consequence with 

 the producer. Every device was put in requisition to catch fish 

 for London and the continent ; and if this was the case at the 

 beginning, it wiU. be readUy understood how rapidly the fish-trade 

 rose in importance as new modes of transit became common At 

 one time there were famous salmon in the Thames, and hopes 

 are entertained of fish being successfully cultivated in that river. 

 It is certain that much deleterious matter has been allowed to 

 get into that stream, and also iato that famous salmon river the 

 Severn ; and in the rivers of Cornwall I believe the hope of 

 breeding salmon is faint in consequence of the poisonous matters 

 which flow firom the mines. Many rivers which were Imown to 

 contain salmon in abundance in the golden age of the fisheries 

 are now less prolific, from matter by which they are polluted, 

 such as the refuse of gasworks, paper-miUs, etc. 



Stake and bag nets in Scotland are known to have been very 

 destructive, as have the putchers, butts, and trumpets of the 



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