PROCEEDINGS 
OF THE 
ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 
VOL. iv. 1861-62. No. 58. 
Monday , 17 th February 1862. 
Professor KELLAND, V.P., in the Chair. 
The following Communications were read : — 
1. On the Condition of the Salmon Fisheries of England and 
Wales in 1861 ; with a Notice of some of the Modes of 
Fishing, especially those practised in the Severn and Wye. 
By Sir William Jardine, Bart., F.R.S., &c. 
The author proposed in this paper to give more detailed obser- 
vations on the salmon fisheries of England and Wales than could 
be done in the compass of an official report, and at the same time 
to add notes on the natural history of the migratory species of Sal- 
monidse met with in these fisheries. The first part related to the 
Severn and Wye. 
No subject has been more legislated upon than that of the regu- 
lation of the salmon fisheries of Great Britain and Ireland ; and 
while this indicates the importance attached to them, it has been at 
the same time mainly caused by the want of a correct knowledge of 
the facts relating to them, an ignorance of the habits and natural 
economy of the species, and by parties looking at one or two insu- 
lated points only, instead of viewing the subject and the various in- 
terests connected with it as one. 
Independently of the want of co-operation by the proprietors of 
rivers, and the system of killing fish at all seasons of the year, weirs 
put up for the purpose of driving machinery, and to which fish-traps 
VOL. iv. 4 D 
