350 
On the Natural Hisiorij of the Salmon, 
rod in one day p. 62. Mr Little says, “ I have killed twenty or thirty 
dozen of fry, when coming from the school at Annan to Newby, in half an 
hour, with a rod in an afternoon,” p. 121. ; and he adds, “ I have known 
even boys and children go and kill, in the course of an afternoon, twenty, thir- 
ty or forty dozen p. 132. 
C. Mill-races. — Mr Jonhstone says, “ I have seen hundreds of them lying 
dead at the bottom of a mill-race, killed by the wheel.” — “ I have seen them 
in thousands and tens of thousands, in the water in the miU-leads, seeking to 
go down, but prevented by the dike across the river, which they could not get 
over ;” p. 40-41. Mr Halliday states, ‘‘ I have seeh the miller taking out 
his creel in the morning at the Newby mill, and taking baskets-full out of it ; 
and I have seen great quantities lying dead in the dam behind the miU-wheel 
in the morning ; I have also known the miller to put in a heck in the small 
side-sluice, by which means great quantities are destroyed in the night time, 
when they set the water of the wheel, through the side-sluice ; there have 
been so many taken on some of the mills on the Annan, that sometimes they 
have fed their pigs with them ; p. 67. The dam-dikes conduct the fry, when 
coming down the water, into the mill-dam, and when night comes on they do not 
see, and they seek their way down the dam, and so they go into the miller’s heck 
or basket, and are all taken ;” p. 67* Mr Little adds, “ They are very de- 
structive to the fry when theyscome down the river ; they take amazing quan- 
tities as the fry go down ; in dry seasons, vtrhen the waters are little, there is 
no other way for the fry to get down the little rivers than by going down 
the mill-lead ; in fact, they can take all the fry that there are in the river at 
those mills. I have seen the water black in these mill-leads with fry, seeking 
down to the sea.” “ I know they take the fry in Ireland, and cure them like 
herrings;” p. 118. 
D. Eel-weirs — Mr Little says, “ In Ireland the eel-fishery is very hurtful 
to the salmon fisheries. The eels are caught by weirs, set in the river for ta- 
king the eels going down to the sea ; the eel-weirs are made of stake and 
wicker work, drawn together towards the centre, and the net, which is like a 
bag, is hung at the centre ; the proper season of the eel-fishery is in the 
months of September, October, and November, when the eels are going down to 
the sea to spawn ; but those who have eel-weirs place their nets in the river at 
the time the salmon-fry are going down : they do this under the pretence of 
catching eels, but really to catch the salmon-fry, which they catch and salt in 
some places in great quantities ;” p. 118. 
It has been alleged that stake-nets in estuaries and on the sea-shore are 
destructive to the salmon fry, and various questions are proposed by the Com- 
mittee, with the view of eliciting the truth. The answers and documents 
produced, however, demonstrate that there is not even a vestige of foundation 
for the charge. The meshes of the stake-nets are too large to detain a smout, as, 
according to Mr Halliday, they are “ about three inches from knot to knot, 
or twelve inches in the square ;” p. 70. It has, however, been supposed, that 
the meshes may be so closed up by floating weeds, as to enable them to inter- 
rupt the fry. But Mr Halliday and other witnesses declare, “ If the sea- 
weed were to close the net, it would be broken down. I have had the stakes 
broken, and the nets thrown down by the sea- weed, Avhen the meshes were not 
