the Sand Pool; although we had fished this pool quite clean of fish before the rain came, yet, whenever the rain did come on, we then continued fishing constantly, until the water rose so high that we could not manage it, and we got the salmon and grilses coming down the river all the time into the pool. Some of those we took coming down the water of Annan were what we call moffatmen, a term used for exhausted fish which had been at the head of the water;' p. 61. But the fish may have come up the water to this pool; or, if they came down with the flood, they may have been kelts,—their gills were infested with maggots. This is the only proof in the report of the descent of salmon in rivers before spawning, and it refers to a length of course from the sea not exceeding a salmon day's journey. The point in question can only be determined at salmon leaps. Do fish ever recross these before they have become kelts? The proof in the estuary and sea is still more defective. Mr. Johnstone declares the fish seldom go against the tide; p. 44. They run backwards and forwards with the tide in all directions;' p. 45. Mr. Halliday admits that it is common for salmon to ebb and flow with the reflux of the tide;' p. 91. With these admissions, the last two witnesses consider the salmon taken in stake-nets, with an ebb court for taking fish with the ebb tide, were such as had been in the river or estuary, and were leaving it for the sea. But if the salmon were inactive, the motions of the ebb-tide would carry them into the nets, in the same manner as the flood-tide carried them past. The fish do not enter rivers until the water is in a state to receive them, and they are in a condition to enter. Hence, on the shore and in estuaries, when not inclined to migrate, the motions of the tide will control them, and the ebb-nets will, from their very nature, be most likely to secure them. Even in the driest seasons, when the fish were not entering the river, Mr. Halliday states that the ebb-nets were most successful; p. 72. Could they be other fish than such as passed by with the flood?

If fresh waters be so exhausting to salmon, and promote the growth of parasitical maggots so rapidly, how comes it to pass that they ever leave the sea, unless for the necessary purposes of spawning? The three witnesses, who consider that salmon run out of rivers to get rid of the worms which infest their gills, have a similar hypothesis for explaining their leaving the sea. Mr. Little says, It is instinct which induces them to return to the rivers, and, as I consider, for the purpose of getting rid of a vermin which gets upon them, called sea-lice.' The animal here referred to is the monoculus piscinus of Linnæus, and the caligus curtus (mixed probably with C. productus) of Müller, but usually confounded with the lernæa salmonea of Linnæus, by a blunder of Mr. Pennant. This animal is common to the saimon, whiting, cod, and flounder. The last three do not enter rivers to escape from its attacks. The salmon, when most infected by it, is in the fattest and healthiest condition; but still, in order to have it removed, this fish, in the opinion of these witnesses, enters rivers, where it is certain of being exhausted in a week

or ten days, and where it is in danger of having its organs of respiration entirely devoured by the entomoda, or maggot. Another reason assigned by the same witnesses for salmon entering rivers, is searching for food. Of this, however, no proof is offered. But in reference to estuaries, Mr. Halliday has taken a great many salmon, with worms passing through them; such worms as are to be seen on the banks :' p. 61. I have had thousands of them dissected, when I have seen small sea-fish in their stomachs;' p. 90.

At what season do salmon enter rivers for the purpose of spawning?-We have already seen that the milt and roe make their appearance in a very obvious manner, so early as the month of May; p. 35. Mr. Johnstone states, that some are getting full of spawn in July; p. 56. In August, the great proportion of them are getting full of roe and milt; they always get full as they get near spawning;' p. 40. Mr. Wilson states, that in August they get considerably advanced with spawn; and in the end of August and beginning of September they get very full of spawn;' p. 12. William Bell, in reference to the Tay, states, that eight or ten days before the fishingseason closes, they are very full of roe;' p. 32. J. Proudfoot says, 'I have seen the fish, particularly the female, beginning to get very large by the 25th August;' p. 27. In September and October they are so full of roe and milt as to be unmarketable. Mr. Halliday says, 'Last year some of the fish sent from Montrose before the 10th October were seeded, and condemned in the London market as being unfit for use; and I have seen them frequently take them by the 1st October that I considered were very unwholesome and improper fish to be taken;' p. 83. Even in February and March last year (1824), in the North Esk, I caught them upon the spawning-beds in the night-time;' p. 84. Mr. Little declares, in August, September, and October, in general, they get large in the belly, and full of roe and milt; and he adds, that, for the purpose of spawning, they begin to ascend in the months of August and September, and continue to the end of the year;' p. 107. In January, February, and even March, some of the fish are unspawned. Mr. Little states, that 'last season my tenant cominenced fishing at my fishery in the Nith on the 11th March. He then killed, as I am informed, upwards of 200 salmon, some of them positively not spawned;' p. 116. Fish ready to spawn seem to enter the rivers directly, and in the friths to keep the depth of the stream: hence, neither shore 'stake-nets nor estuary stake-nets are successful in capturing red fish. Even Mr. Bell, a witness obviously hostile to stake-nets, declares, in reference to the capture of red fish in the estuary, that none' are caught, and qualifies his assertion by saying,

there may be one, accidentally, in a year or two;' p. 23. In ascending the river, Mr. Halliday declares, the fish run most in the morning and evening;' p. 86. The general time of spawning, according to all the witnesses, is during the months of November, December, and January; pp. 61. 108: though stragglers may be found in March.

The interruptions which salmon at present experience in ascending rivers for the purpose of spawning, chiefly arise from mill-dams. The walls of these, in many cases, are built in so close a manner, that for months there will not be enough of water to permit any fish to ascend. It is only in very great foods that they can successfully overcome the barrier. Noxious matter from tan-pits, the steeping of flax, and gas-washing, expel salmon from a river; p. 133. 67. In reference to noxious matter, however, Mr. Drummond makes an exception in favor of peat-moss, floated into the Forth from BlairDrummond: I believe it to be troublesome to the nets in fishing; but certainly there is nothing noxious in the nature of moss to the fish ;' p. 141. Fish ready to spawn are sought after by poachers for the sake of the roe. Mr. Little says, It is potted. The gentlemen going to fish in the lakes of Cumberland buy it for the purpose of using it as bait in fishing upon these lakes;' p. 119.

With regard to the mode of spawning, it is gratifying to peruse the testimony of eye witnesses. Mr. Halliday thus describes the process: When they proceed to the shallow waters, which is generally in the morning, or at twilight in the evening, they play round the ground, two of them together. When they begin to make the furrow, they work up the gravel rather against the stream, as a salmon cannot work with his head down the stream, for the water going into his gills the wrong way drowns him; and, when they have made a furrow, they go a little distance, the one to one side and the other to the other side of the furrow, and throw themselves on their sides when they come together, and, rubbing against each othier, they shed their spawn both into the furrow at once.'- I have seen three pair upon a spawning-bed at a time in the Annan; I have stood and looked at them, both while making the furrow and laying the spawn.'-'They do not lay it all at once. It requires from about eight to twelve days for them to lay their spawn.' 'I have often taken a number of these kelts with the skin rubbed off below the jaws, just between the chowk fins (pectorals), almost the size of a half crown, with rubbing up the gravel, and making the holes for the spawn. The spawning-bed is easily known by the thrown-up gravel; when I took my foot off the hard gravel, and put it on the spawning-bed, it was quite

soft; p. 65. Mr. Little speaks in an equally decided manner. 'I have frequently looked at the salmon spawning.'-' When they begin their bed first, it is like one furrow; they make a furrow in the shallow part or current of the water, where they begin their spawn, and they continue working against the stream, until they have formed a bed of perhaps twelve feet by eight or ten.' for one pair of salmon. In the instance I was alluding to, when I saw these salmon first, the bed was very little, but it increased every day. I observed the salmon go very leisurely down the side of the bed, and go just round where they have thrown up the gravel, and come back to the same point next the stream; as soon as they came up to this place, they threw them

selves on their sides, and worked one against the other, at the same time rubbing their noses against the gravel, till they came to the other corner of the bed, and then they fell leisurely round until they came to the same place again, at the top of the bed next the stream, where they went through the same process; they continued in this way for many days, working, and, if it so happened that they were frightened, they would run away, and in a little time return to it again.'-' It takes them some considerable time before they get all their spawn deposited; several days; and I have known them, when they have been frightened away, go and leave their spawning-beds, and begin at other places.' -The bed is covered as they go along.''Both assist in it, and while in the act of depositing their spawn.' He adds, that 'the male gets a very long hard bill on his under jaw, which decreases as the spawning season passes;' p. 108. Sir H. Davy asserts (but whether from having seen the operation is not stated), that the female fish, in spawning, deposits her eggs slowly on gravel; the male sheds a white seminal liquid upon them; and both fish cover the eggs with gravel. The male is most active in this operation, which hardens the extremity of the mouth, and bends it into the form of a hook;' p. 145.

1

The quantity of eggs deposited by a single female, has been variously stated by different authors. Mr. Johnstone says, 'I have counted them (eggs in the roe) repeatedly; they are from 18,000 to 20,000 on an average;' p. 36. Mr. Halliday says, "They are not all exactly of the same number; I have found them of different numbers, from 17,000 to 20,000;' p. 62.

Let us now attend to the character and motions of the spawned fish, or kelts, as they are termed. In this state, says Mr. Wilson, when the spawn is just leaving the fish, it is merely just two pieces of skin, just like a cow in calf?" p. 13. Mr. Johnstone, By a kelt is meant a fish which has recently spawned; it is very thin; it gets very much discolored; it is very long in comparison with its thickness; the head is very large; the fish is quite out of season; the fish then cuts white in general; p. 37. When the process of spawning is finished, according to Mr. Halliday, they go into a pool to recruit themselves; and, in about a fortnight or three weeks thereafter, the male fish begins to seek his way down the river. The female fish remains longer about the spawning ground; and I have very often found some of the mother fish going down a kelt as late as when the first of the fry began to come down the river.'-'In the end of April and beginning of May, I have taken five at one haul in the river Annan,' p. 62. He says, in Februáry and March, immense numbers are caught;' and, in the upper parts of the Tay, there must be thousands taken annually,' p. 83. James Gillies has formerly stated the number of foul fish (kelts) in February. He adds, You could not commence before the month of March, without taking the foul fish, because the most part of the she fish come down in the month of March from the high lands. You will see them go down in shoals. The he fish always seeks his way down immediately

after he spawns; but you will scarcely get a she kelt early in the season. You will get the she fish coming down in the months of March and April, great numbers of them; and you will scarcely get one he fish so late as that month; all the he's are coming down chiefly in the month of February,' p. 139.

In the course of their descent to the sea, they experience interruptions from cruives and damdikes; but, when arrived at the place where the tide meets the river, they seem to pursue the deepest part of the channel or stream, and escape all the coble-nets and stake-nets of the estuaries and sea-shore. In reference to the stake-nets capturing kelts, Mr. Bell declares they do not, p. 29, Mr. Johnstone says, that 'very few were ever caught in them.'

The station in the sea to which the kelts resort, yet remains to be discovered. Sir H. Davy says,Salmon do not go far out to sea;' p. 145. How he has gained this information does not appear. Not surely from the proprietors of stake-nets on the sea-shore, for salmon seldom enter there, but from May to September;-not surely from cod and haddock fishers, for the bait which allures these fish tempts not the salmon. William Bell thinks that the fish that enter rivers from the sea come from the north,' p. 33.; the very place, we may add, whence the older naturalists brought the herrings.

To return to the spawning-bed, we are compelled to record the injuries which it must sustain by the present practice of fishing. Mr. Halliday, in reference to the coble-net (for the spawning-beds are remote from the stake-net grounds), as used in the winter and spring, says, We have very strong ropes made of old nets, and with round circles of heavy rope lashed to the ground-rope of the net to keep it down; sometimes we tie stones to it to keep it to the bottom, and sometimes we put two cast-metal sinkers. It is generally in the spring that we require the heaviest weights at the bottom of the coble-nets, on account of the river being heavier or more full of water at that season. If thousands of fish should breed in the river, it would be impossible for spawn to come to perfection, where we are constantly fishing over them all the twenty-four hours with coble-nets. They usually fish the whole fords in the river from top to bottom at pleasure, with ground-ropes trailed along them;' p. 65. He has seen this process performed on the very places where they use winches and capstans in the Tay; by which means they can add more weight to the bottom if they like.' Though he never examined the river to determine whether the eggs were actually removed, yet he declares, 'I have seen the under rope of the net level down the spawning-bed; and he adds, with force, You might just as soon have a bed of onions to come to perfection (as a spawning-bed), if a coble-net and rope was dragged over it, tearing up the mould twenty times a-day; I would take my chance of the one as soon as the other;' p. 66.

The period when the spawn evolves the fry, is stated by Mr. Little to be when the natural warmth comes into the water in the month of March; and they continue going down from

that time until the first of May sometimes I have observed them going down till the month of June; I have seen some of them in the month of June, but they principally are out of the river early in May. The spawn does not come into life I consider till March;' p. 115. Even with regard to the time of the fish rising from the gravel, he says, I have observed, when we have early warm weather the fry come early, and when we have a late spring, it is later before the fry rise from the gravel; of course a great deal depends upon the season, but generally they begin to rise about the beginning of March, and they end about the middle of April in rising from the bed;' p. 109. Mr. Halliday says, I think they generally come into life the end of March, or from about the middle of March to the end of it; but I do not think they come all into life exactly at one time, but nearly so. Some of the fry appear to be much larger than others, and I do not see the young fish so plentiful at the sides of the water at the first as after some time;' p. 62. Sir H. Davy says, 'It is stated that the eggs produce young ones in about six weeks,' p. 145.;—an opinion rendered nugatory by viewing in connexion the general period of the spawning and the general period of the appearance of the fry. There is very little satisfactory information respecting the appearance of the fry at the time of their evolution. Mr. Little says, 'I never saw them in that state, but I have often conversed with other water-keepers on the subject, who are placed upon the upper branch of the rivers, and they describe them very much in the same way that Mr. William Scott did when he was examined in the Tay case, that they rise from these gravel-beds like a crop of oats or thick beard of grain, rising up all round the stones in very great numbers. The tail comes up first, and they will come from these beds with a part of the pea about their heads;' p. 109. At such a period, the destruction occasioned by the heavy ground rope of the coble-nets must be truly great.

The progress of the fry from their birth-place to the sea is given in detail by several witnesses, all of whom agree in the particulars. The fry, freed from the spawn, and now termed smouts or smolts, betake themselves to pools, and afterwards proceed, according to circumstances, in myriads along the easy water at the margin of the river, with their heads against the stream, until they reach the frith where the tide ebbs and flows, where like the kelts, which frequently go down at the same time, they retire to the deepest part of the channel, and disappear in the sea. These facts were established upon oath by two competent witnesses in the Tay case, and their evidence is recorded in the Report, p. 92. The flooded state of the river is most favorable for their descent, by supplying depths of water on the shallows or fords. Mr. Little says, 'The Coleraine or Bann is a late fishery; and in the year 1820, in the spring of that year, I considered we lost nearly all the fry; the dry spring did not allow them to come down the small rivers; they were collected into little pools, and the people in the country destroyed them; and, in the end of that season of 1820, the fishing fel! off to forty-two tons;' p. 127.

mencement of July.

Perhaps from the end of June they will average three pounds, and at the end of July about four or five pounds;' p. 10. Mr. Halliday says, ' I think we do not see them again from the time they leave the river as fry, until the next year, early in the spring, when they begin to return to the rivers young salmon; p. 87. Mr. Little says, I consider that what we call the fry that go down in the early part of the season, if they are allowed to go down to the sea, return the same year; and that we kill them from three to nine or ten pounds weight;' p. 111.

The witnesses seem generally to agree with the prevailing opinion, That the salmon fisheries in the kingdom are rapidly decreasing in value, owing to the increasing scarcity of fish.' But the importance which should be attached to this evidence, will be estimated differently according to the judgment of the reader. Mr. Wilson communicates a statement of the number of boxes of fish shipped from the Tweed, or rather for the first thirteen miles from its mouth, from the year 1796 to 1823. In this table we perceive the very great fluctuations of the fisheries, depending on the seasons: the years 1796 and 1815 were as 9-338 to 9-382 boxes; yet 1776 was to 1797 as 9-338 to 12-665 boxes; and 1815 was to 1816 as 9.382 to 11:471. The year 1803 is less than 1819, and 1809 than 1819 or 1821, and but a little higher than 1822 or 1823. The box of salmon previous to 1816 contained six and a half stones of fish; since that period it contains eight and twelve stones. In this table the consumption of the neighbourhood, or what is sent to a distance by carriers and coaches is not noticed. Hence the table is useless as an index of the actual productiveness of the Tweed, though it may serve to illustrate the character of the exports of Berwick. Mr. Bell says that, in all parts of the Tay, the fisheries have decreased, but no statement is produced, p. 20. J. Proudfoot says, In 1815, 1816, 1817, and 1818, it was a tolerable fishery, and the year 1819 was rather inferior with me; perhaps it might not be less with some; and since 1820 we have had regular bad years successively.' But in reference to the influence of the seasons in producing these changes, he says, for the last two years they have not been so good,' p. 26. In reference to the fishery in 1824, of May, compared with the corresponding period in 1823, he says, I believe that this season there are more fish caught in the Tay, as yet, than last season,' p. 33. There is a statement given by Mr. Little, of the relative produce of his Irish fisheries, from the year 1808 to 1823: we shall give a few examples of intervals of ten years. The produce in tons of fish was at the Bann in 1808 and 1818, as 76 to 70; in 1809 to 1819, as 80 to 82; in 1812 to 1822, as 65 to 31; in 1813 to 1823, as 47 to 52. In the Bush fishery 1808 is to 1818, as 16 to 12; 1809 to 1819, as 9 to 12; in 1812 to 1822, as 8 to 8; and in 1813 to 1823, as 7 to 14; in the Foyle, 1808 is to 1818 as 37 to 44; 1809 to 1819 as 36 to 58; 1812 to 1822, as 48 to 57; 1813 to 1823, as 35 to 50.-Evidence, p. 106.

The evidence in this Report shows that poaching operations are carried on both night and day,

occasionally under the very windows of the houses of our nobility, the Castles of Duplin and Kinfauns, and the Palace of Scoon. Where this has been prevented, as it seems to have been done in the Moy at Ballina, Mr. Little declares, I consider that they had no protection for some years previous to 1816; by that protection it has risen from six tons to an average of sixty tons in a season;' p. 106. The same witness adds, The Dublin market is just as regularly supplied with salmon during the close-season, as it is at any season of the year;' p. 116. How far these facts bear out Sir H. Davy in his assertion, that the great northern fisheries, and the Irish fisheries, are much less productive than formerly' (p. 145), the reader must determine. But if we believe the opinion of Mr. Little, in reference to the Solway, to be true, and extend it, as supported by the preceding evidence, to all the other great fisheries, I believe I can prove, from the dealers in salmon in the neighbourhood of the Solway Frith, that there were more killed in these nets by poachers, during the winter season of last year, than were killed during the proper season for killing salmon;' then must we conclude that salmon are as abundant as ever, but poachers now enjoy a greater share than formerly, to the injury of the legal fisher.

The natural foes of salmon are limited in the evidence to seals and grampuses. In regard to the seals, Mr. Johnstone says, 'I have often counted between fifty and sixty seals that lie a little from my house summer and winter.' That they feed on salmon is ascertained. 'I have seen them chasing, catching, and eating them;' p. 47. Mr. Halliday says, 'I have observed from sixty to eighty seals in one flock, and I have seen three or four flocks within my view at Balmerino;' p. 74. Since the removal of the stake-nets these depredators have increased; p. 47, 75. Mr. Little states, that there are few seals in the Solway (where there are stake-nets), but that they are numerous in Ireland. The grampuses are in all the sea-coasts around Scotland and Ireland. It is indeed probable that, in the United Kingdom Seas, grampuses devour many more salmon than the inhabitants.

Mr. Halliday says, 'Since the lands have been so much drained, the rivers fall in so fast, that fish cannot get up to the higher parts of the river so freely as formerly,' p. 82; and Mr. Little says, 'I consider that the draining of the land in Scotland has been as injurious to the fishings as the liming of it. Formerly the small waters, in consequence of the rains remaining long in the land and in the marshes, were a length of time in rising and falling; now they get up very rapidly, and fall very rapidly. The salmon, when they go up those little rivers to breed, deposit their spawn; and, at a season of the year when the spawn ought to rise from the gravel, it is left dry;' p. 117.

SECT. VIII.-OF THE TURBOT FISHERY.

The Dutch seem to excel both the English and Scotch in the turbot fishery; which is chiefly conducted on the Broadfourteen's bank, and in the neighbourhood of Heligoland, from the beginning of April to the middle of August. The