854 On the Natural History of the Salmon, 
amounts to nothing. Thomas Proudfoot considers the stake-neis set up at 
Montrose as the cause of the decrease in the'river Tay ; they “ take’a great many 
of the fish that would come into the Tay,” p. 24. ; but he is ignorant of the 
distance of these nets from the Tay ; yet he believes they are destructive, 
because, in his opinion, the fish come from the north-east coast. Mr Bell 
considers that stake- nets on the shore of the Forth at Ely, would injure the 
.Tay fishings ; p. 52. In the absence of all proof, from the returns of river 
fisheries, we are here presented with some notices of the rents, as illustrating 
the injury occasioned by the stake-nets. But it appears that Lord Gray’s fish- 
ing, before the erection of stake-nets, either in an estuary or upon the shore, 
was £3000, and that it is now between £3500 and £3700. In the interval, it 
has been as low as £1205 ; p. 26. Mr Halliday declares, “ When I first came 
to the Tay, the rents of the upper fisheries were then about £ 4000 a-year 
for fifteen of the principal fisheries ; and during the time of the stake- nets in 
the Tay, twelve of these fishings rented for above £6000 Sterling per annum.” 
In reference to the cause of the reduction in Lord Gray’s fishings, he states, 
“ Because the upper fishers had joined together, and fished them jointly ; be- 
fore that, there was a separation of companies at Perth, but Mr Bell and Mr 
Bichardson’s people fished their fishings together as one company ; after that, 
there was nobody there to oppose them ; before that time Mr Bell and Mr 
llichardson were two opposite companies p. 7L 
The evidence of a decrease in the Frith of Tay from the abolition of stake- 
nets, is of a more unequivocal kind. Mr Halliday states, that the total pro- 
duce of the Tay when the stake-nets were in operation, amounted to between 
50.000 and 60,000 salmon ; and he says, “ I do not believe the Tay has pro- 
duced, since the discontinuance of the stake-nets, more than from 26,000 to 
28.000 or 29,000;” p. 7L Mr Johnstone says, “ Some of the properties that 
produced 2000 or 3000 salmon, and even 4009 a-year, are now not fished at 
all p. 42. Before the use of stake-nets, he says that the river fisheries pro- 
duced annually about 39,000 salmon, and the frith fisheries about 4000 ; but 
that, by the use of stake-nets, the frith fishery rose to 30,000. It follows 
that, since 1812, 26,000 salmon, besides grilses, have annually been lost to the 
public. 
The increase in the produce of the fisheries in those places Avhere stake- 
nets have been erected, is equally manifest. Mr Johnstone says, “ I have 
caught above 500 salmon and grilses in one stake-net, and at one time, far from 
any river;” p. 47. “ We have caught thousands going away from the near- 
est river, the Findhorn ;” p. 48. In the Esk at Musselburgh, Mr Halliday 
declares, that had he no stake-net, he would lose four or five hundred fish 
every year ; p. 76. He says of one in the Forth, “ I think the first tide after 
it was put up, we had about twenty-eight or twenty-nine salmon and grilses 
in it ;” p. 77- 
3. Increase of natural foes — -These are limited in the evidence to seals and 
grampuses. In regard to the seals, Mr Johnstone says, “ I have often count- 
ed between fifty and sixty seals that lie a little from my house summer and 
winter. That they feed on the salmon is ascertained. “ I have seen them 
chasing, catching, and eating them ;” p. 47. Mr Halliday says, ‘‘ I have obser- 
ved from sixty to eighty seals in one flock, and I have seen three or four flocks 
