541 
the tide rises a few feet above them. Most fish are taken in the 
ebb, or in the putchers with their mouths set up the river, proving 
without doubt that a large number of fish ascend so far and return 
again without ever entering the fresh-water part of the river. 
The 'putts or putt-nets , as they are sometimes called, are placed 
on the same kind of stages. They are also formed of wicker or 
basket work, but are more complicated, and the wicker work is 
closer, and executed with more care. The whole machine is about 
twelve feet long, and consists of three parts, which can be attached 
to each other as occasion requires — the kipe, butt, fore-wheel or 
biddle. The diameter of the chief part, or kipe, is about five feet 
at the mouth, and fourteen inches at the lower or narrow end. The 
butt is fourteen inches wide at the neck and six at the lower end. 
These take large fish by having cross-bars placed in the narrow end ; 
and to this can be affixed at will the third part, the forewheel or 
biddle , constructed somewhat like a mouse-trap inside, and used for 
taking everything small — shrimps, small soles, young cod, flounders, 
eels, lamperns, &c. In one taken off a few days before, we found 
shrimps, a small eel, and a rock pipit ; in fact, nothing that enters 
the large, open, five-feet- wide mouth escapes when this fore- 
wheel is kept attached. The putt-net is extremely destructive to 
all young fish, and in spring, when the salmon fry descend, they 
are taken in hundreds. The fishermen, however, say that they now 
remove the fore-wheel during the fry season, and it is the river 
conservator’s duty to see that this is attended to. 
The Wye is a very fine stream, and has also had many perse- 
cutions. There are, however, no navigation weirs or other for- 
midable obstructions within the first twenty or twenty-five miles of 
its course from the sea. One great abuse in this river is the re- 
cognised killing of the skirling, which is the young of the salmon, 
the parr of Scotch rivers. They are killed in thousands, and are 
hawked about the country for sale, and purchased by the gentry as well 
as by the labouring classes. Tourists come to Monmouth to eat skir- 
ling. Monmouth is in fact the Woolwich of the Wye ; skirling its 
whitebait. The history and present position of th eparr question is 
given here, and is thus summed up. “ Any one who will insist now 
that a parr is not a young salmon, must have some warp in his in- 
tellect, not to be removed by any possible demonstration.” 
In the Wye, coraclp nets are much used ; but the peculiar mode 
