67.

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 floods 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. 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 other, 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.

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.

When

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. 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 February 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 fell off to forty-two tons;' p. 127.

The smouts descend during the months of March, April, May, and June. Mr. Halliday states, From the first time that I have observed them, about the end of March or beginning of April, they come down until about the 10th or 12th of May. I have seen them in the middle of May, and as late as June, in a particularly dry season, when the river had not been flooded;' p. 63. Mr. Wilson says, 'I think they commence going down about the end of April, and finish going down about May;' p. 10. James Sime, in his deposition in the Tay case, 'believes that the fry goes down the river in the month of April;' p. 93. Mr. Little declares, that they are principally out of the river early in May;' p. 115. Mr. Johnstone says, "They have generally reached the sea in the month of May. Some reach it in June; a few;' p. 36. While the fry are in the act of descending to the sea, they are exposed to many enemies, of which the following are the most destructive :

A. Coble-nets.-As these engines, according to the present practice, are in active operation during the period of the descent of the fry to the sea, we may expect such statements as the following. Mr. Johnstone says, that smouts cannot pass through the coble-net, if there be much dirt in it; and sometimes, particularly when there is a number of them, they get broadside on; in particular when there are salmon in the net, they prevent the fry from going through so easily; and the net is loose and not extended, more especially when near the edge of the water;' p. 40. Mr. Halliday says, I have dragged a number of them on shore with the coble-nets.' 'I have dragged them ashore at the Howe's Pool, on the river Annon; in the Bridge Pool at the bridge of Annon, when the boys used to gather them up; and at the Old Mill Pool I have hauled out a good many;' p. 66.

B. Angling. At first sight one might suppose that the angler was an enemy of but feeble destructive powers. But it appears to be otherwise in fact. Mr. Wilson says, I have seen from my own window upwards of seventy or eighty people angling within the distance of half a mile on the Tweed;' p. 15. Mr. Halliday declares, 'I have killed above twenty dozen with the 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, thirty, or forty dozen ;' p. 132.

C. Mill-races.-Mr. Johnstone says, I have seen hundreds of them lying dead at the botom of a mill-race, killed by the wheel.' -'I have seen them in thousands, and tens of thousands, in the water in the mill-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 seen 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 mill-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 destructive to the fry when they come down the river; they take amazing quantities as the fry go down; in dry seasons, when 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 taking 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 committee, with the view of eliciting the truth. The answers and documents produced, however, demonstrate that there is little foundation for the charge.

In reference to the Tay, Mr. Johnstone declares that he never' saw a smout in a stake-net; p. 43. Of the presence of such in stake-nets, Mr. Halliday also says, ' never; and they could not be there without being seen by me; it was impossible;' p. 70. Mr. Little declares, 'A stakenet neither injures the breeding fish, nor does it destroy the spawn of the salmon or the fry; I speak from having attended those nets, and never having seen any salmon-fry in them;' p. 122. Mr. Sime, and Mr. Shepherd, who surveyed the stake-nets on purpose, during the Tay case, never found in any of them any salmon-fry; p. 92— 93. They are not even taken by the spirlin-nets, which have a small mesh. In fact, not only are the stake-nets innocent of the charge of catching the fry, but even the coble-net in the estuary can do them no harm, as they are beyond its reach in the deep water. Hence Mr. Sime and Mr. Shepherd, though fishing with a small-meshed net on purpose, both in the eddy water and in the stream, found none after the fry had reached the tide, ib.

The period of the return of the fry from the sea, seems not well determined; and, on this interesting subject, the evidence is very imperfect. Mr. Wilson seems to think that, as grilse,

they return again at the end of June and the com

mode of taking the fish is this:-At the beginning of the season, the drag-net is used, which, being drawn along the banks, brings up various kinds of flat fish, as soles, plaice, thornbacks, and turbots; but, when the warm weather has driven the fish into deeper water, and upon banks of a rougher surface, where the drag-net is no longer practicable, the fishermen have then recourse to the hook and line. Each line extends from one to nearly three miles in length, and is armed with 600, 700, or 800, hooks, fixed to it at the distance of several yards from each other. To keep these long lines properly stretched, and prevent their being carried away by the tide, lead is used or small anchors. The Dutch are said to supply turbot to the value of £80,000 per annum to the London market.

It having been said that the English salt does not answer for curing fish, so well as that of St.

Ube's, St. Martin's, and Oleron; and that foreign salt is generally preferred for that purpose in the West of England; Dr. Henry, of Manchester, examined in 1809 the comparative strength and purity of British and foreign salt, and the result of his investigation has proved, that the quantity of pure muriate of soda contained in the large grained fishery salt of Cheshire, is considerably more than what exists in the celebrated salt of Oleron, which is the strongest of the foreign salts; and that the proportion of sulphate and muriate of magnesia is ten times, and of other impurities in foreign salt, three times as much, as in the Cheshire salt. An account of this analysis was read before the Royal Society, in January 1810, and published at Liverpool, in 1811. Dr. Henry's Table of the result of his experiments is so curious that we here insert it.

FISHING, RIGHT of. It has been held, that where the lord of the manor hath the soil on both sides of the river, it is a good evidence that he hath right of fishing; and it puts the proof upon him who claims liberam piscariam; but, where a river ebbs and flows, and is an arm of the sea, there it is common to all, and he who claims a privilege to himself, must prove it; for if the trespass is brought for fishing there, the defendant may justify, that the place is brachium maris, in quo unusquisque subditus domini regis habet et habere debet liberam piscariam. In the Severn the soil belongs to the owners of the land on each side; and the soil of the river Thames is in the king, but the fishing is common to all. He who is owner of the soil of a private river, hath separata piscaria; and he that hath libera piscaria, hath a property in the fish, and may bring a possessory action for them; but communis piscaria is like the case of all other commons. One that has a close pond, in which there are fish, may call them pisces suos, in an indictment, &c., but he cannot call

61

64

163

9831

111

111

131

986

1

14

144

164

9834

154

154

174

982

them bona et catalla, if they be not in trunks. There needs no privilege to make a fish-pond, as there doth in the case of a warren. See FRANCHISE.

FISHING-FLY, a bait used in angling for divers kinds of fish. Of the artificial fly there are reckoned no fewer than twelve sorts, of which the following are the principal:-1. For March, the dun fly, made of dun wool, and the feathers of the partridge's wing; or the body made of black wool, and the feathers of a black drake. 2. For April, the stone-fly: the body made of black wood, dyed yellow under the wings and tail. 3. For the beginning of May, the ruddy fly; made of red wool, and bound about with black silk, with the feathers of a black capon hanging dangling on his sides next his tail. 4. For June, the greenish fly; the body made of black wool, with a yellow list on either side, the wings taken off the wings of a buzzard, bound with black broken hemp. 5. The moorish fly, the body made of duskish wool, and the wings of the blackish mail of a drake. 6. The tawny