XX 
Report on Sahiion Fishsries. 
limits of the district ot the South Esk ; and this river, looking to 
the wording of the bye-law constituting the district of the South 
Esk, he holds to be precisely in the same position with regard to 
the South Esk as the Eden is with regard to the Tay. 
Probably it would be sufficient to remedy the erroneous wording 
of certain District Bye-laws, in the event of their being farther 
Salmon Fishery legislation, to provide, in the case of all such bye- 
laws where there are rivers frequented by salmon outside the 
estuary of the main river which gives its name to the district, that 
the word ' River ' in the latter clause of such bye-laws shall be read 
and construed as if it had originally been * Rivers.' 
Paidle-nets on In the end of December last a public meeting was held in the 
shore'^of the Mechanics Hall, Dumfries, to discuss the grievances of the iisher- 
Sohvay Firth, nien on the Scottish shore of the Solway Firth, and to maintain 
the right of these fishermen to fish for white fish by means of 
Paidle-nets, which are simply — as has been repeatedly held by 
Government Commissions and by the Court of Session — small stake- 
nets ostensibly used to take white fish, but really calculated and 
intended to take salmon. 
Subsequently to this meeting, a deputation waited on Lord 
Lothian to support the rights of the Paidle-net fishermen, and to 
urge the appointment of an impartial Commissioner to investigate 
the whole matter. 
With reference to the above, it should be kept in mind that the 
upper part of the Solway Firth, Avhere the Paidle-nete ai-e used and 
set up alongside and between the Salmon Stake-nets, is not fre- 
quented by the more valuable kinds of white fish, such as cod and 
haddocks, but chiefly by flounders, which are much less important. 
This flounder fishing is not, and never can be, of equal value with 
the Salmon Fisheries in the same locality, with which, as carried 
on by Paidle-nets, it mostly injuriously interferes. 
It should likewise be kept in view, in connection with the appli- 
cation made to Lord Lothian for the appointment of a Commissioner, 
that there have already been three Special Commissions on the 
Solway Firth between 1870 and 1882, when the Fishery Board 
for Scotland was created, and all these Commissions agreed in 
declaring that these Paidle-nets are so constructed and so placed 
as almost inevitably to intercept and to capture salmon, and in 
recommending either their removal or such an alteration in their 
construction and position as would not make them injurious to the 
salmon fishings. 
The first Commission, which consisted of the late Mr Frank 
Buckland and Mr Young, the Inspector of Salmon Fisheries, 
though differing on some points about the Solway, were unanimous 
concerning the evil effect of these Paidle-nets on the legitimate 
Salmon Fisheries. 
Mr Buckland wrote as follows about them in a paper on ' The 
' Nets used in the Solway,' which forms Appendix 4 to the Report 
of 1871 : — ' Paidle-nets are very destructive to salmon. There are, 
* I understand, about 40 of them fishing at and about the mouth 
' of the Nith, and entail a deal of watching on the part of the 
* water-bailiffs ; the plea always given for their use is that they 
* are set for flounders, and flounders only. They are covered 
