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CHAPTER II.

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ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SALMON, AND ON THE SALMON-FISHERIES,

AS STATED IN THE REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE SALMON-
FISHERIES OF THE UNITED KINGDOM, ORDERED BY THe house oF COMMONS
TO BE PRINTED, 17TH JUNE 1824;"-
-WITH REMARKS.

THE attention of the country has long been directed to the Salmon-fisheries, in consequence of the numerous discussions which have taken place in our courts of law, respecting the rights of different proprietors, and the legality of certain engines or modes of fishing. In the river Tay, and its estuary, litigations on this subject were, at one period, carried to a very great extent; and the heritors having fishings in the river, succeeded in establishing the coble-net as the only legal engine of fishing in the estuary, and suppressing all fixed apparatus, such as stake-nets. Two years ago, these victorious upper heritors brought in a bill to the House of Commons, for the ostensible purpose of promoting the interest of the fisheries in the river; but the under heritors succeeded in convincing the House, that the end could not be gained by a change of a few days in close time, nor by the police regulations proposed; and the bill was thrown out. Last year, the attempt was renewed, to introduce a similar bill, and with no better success. The house, however, having the subject thus pressed upon their notice, and aware of its national importance, resolved to examine it in all its relations. A Committee was accordingly appoint

ed, and the evidence taken constitutes the Report to which we now propose to direct the attention of our readers. With the exception of one witness, "Henry Home Drummond, Esq. a Member," all those examined are individuals actually engaged as salmonfishers, and practically acquainted with the subject. Among these, some seem acquainted only with coble-net fishing; others appear equally well skilled in stake-net as in coble-net. There is a paper added to the Report, which was delivered in to the Committee by Sir Humphry Davy, on the Salmon-Fisheries, in which the principal statements are at variance with the testimony of those witnesses who are the most extensive salmon-fishers in the United Kingdom.

In order to enable our readers to perceive the evils which exist in our salmon-fishing practices, and the principles by which the Legislature should be guided in framing new regulations to remove them, we shall consider the facts brought to light, or established in this Report, relating to the habits of the fish; then inquire into the nature of the alleged grievances by which the fisheries are injured, and proceed to the consideration of the remedies proposed. Without quoting in every

instance the words of the witnesses, we shall refer to the number of the page of the Report. It would have been moreconvenient had the questions, with the answers, been numbered, as the references could have been made with greater distinctness.

HABITS OF THE FISH.

In the course of the examinations which are here recorded, the Committee seem to have been anxious to determine the different species of fish usually found in the salmon rivers, or captured in the nets. This is an object of considerable importance, with the view of regulating the size of the meshes of the nets.

I. SALMON All the witnesses are of the same opinion with regard to this species; but they differ greatly as to this question, "Whether the salmon of one river can be distinguished from those of another by any definite cha racters." Mr Halliday has "compared them in Ireland, England, and Scotland, many times," and says, "I cannot make out the distinction of one river's fish from that of another;" p. 87. Mr James Bell states, "I have a little guess; not altogether;" p. 22. J. Proudfoot considers the Tweed fish as smaller than those of the Tay, and those of the River Isla as smaller than those of the River Tay; but, when asked if upon meeting with an Isla fish and a Tay fish in the frith, he would know the one from the other, he replies, No; I would not ;" p. 25. On the other side of the question, Mr James Wilson, in reference to the North and South Esks at Montrose, declares, that "the species of salmon is quite different in these two rivers;" and adds, "One is a large coarse scaly fish, and the other is a smaller and a finer fish;" p. 14. Mr James Bell states, that the Aberdeen fish is quite different from the Tay, different in the scale ;" p. 28. Geo. Little, Esq. states, that the sal

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mon in the Shannon "grow to a large size," and adds, "We have three fishings that fall all into one bay in Irelaud, the Bush, the Bann, and the Foyle, and we can easily distinguish the fish of all the different rivers when we take them. The salmon in the Bush is a long-bodied round salmon, nearly as thick at the head as he is at the middle. The salmon that we kill at the Bann, is what I call a very neatmade fish, very broad at the shoulders, and the back fin tapering away towards the tail, and quite a different shaped fish from the Bush fish. The Foyle is a river that we seldom get any large salmon in ;" p. 112.

A considerable degree of importance seems to be attached to this branch of the inquiry, with the view of determi ning the question, Whether the fish bred in a particular. river always return to their birth-place, and to no other river. Sir Humphry Davy assumes that "salmon, and salmon-trout, belong, in fact, to the river in which they were spawned," and that "each variety of salmon or salmon-trout affects a particular river, and always returns to it ;" p. 145. The other witnesses seem generally to entertain the same opinion. Mr Little has been told of evidence on this subject, p. 112; but no facts are communicated. Indeed, Mr Halliday asserts, that "they do not all come to the same river in which they were bred;" and as a proof of this, he states, "I found the different rivers vary from one year to another; but when one is protected and another unprotected, the unprotected river keeps up its quantity as well as the protected one;" p. 87. Judging from analogy, we should consider it probable, that, in the absence of deranging circumstances, the fish bred in a river would generally return to it; but not a few, under the influence of those feelings on which depend the peopling of the globe, would wander into other ri

vers. And when we consider the persecutions from seals, grampuses, and sharks, to which salmon are exposed in the sea, in connexion with their social or gregarious disposition, it is impossible to avoid drawing the inference, that the tribes belonging to different rivers must be frequently dispersed and mixed, and have their future movements controlled by other circumstances than the localities of their birth. In point of fact, salmon, so far from belonging to the rivers in which they were bred, belong to the sea, the place of their ordinary residence, where they grow and feed. The ordinary laws of citizenship, therefore, are not applicable to salmon.

II. GRILSE.-Sir H. Davy and Mr John Wilson consider this fish as a young salmon; other witnesses, as Messrs Little, Johnstone, and Halliday, entertain a different opinion, viewing it as a distinct species. They found this opinion of its claim to rank as a species, on the circumstances of its being found full of milt or of roe, and of its spawning and return to the sea as a kell or spawned fish. But fish spawn long before they attain maturity; consequently, this test is of little value. But other proofs are offered. Mr Johnstone says, "The grilse is a much less fish in general; it is much smaller at the tail in proportion, and it has a much more swallow tail, much more forked it is smaller at the head, sharper at the point of the nose, and generally the grilse is more bright in the scales than the salmon;" p. 38. Mr Halliday states, that "a grilse's tail is very much forked, like that of a swallow; a salmon's tail is not forked like that of a grilse, and the chowk fins (pectorals) of a grilse are much more blue in their colour than a salmon's; a grilse is much smaller at the head and immediately above the tail than a salmon is; it seems to be a different fish in shape every way; besides, it

goes up full of spawn in the end of the year, and does not come down till the spring, when it is a kelt grilse, while the young salmon are coming up the rivers in numbers of at least fifty young salmon for every kelt grilse that returns to the sea;" p. 63. Mr Little, who entertains a similar opinion to the two preceding witnesses, states, that grilses enter rivers in June, seldom in May, p. 112, (confirmed by Mr Halliday, p. 53,) and adds, "We do not find in some rivers the same proportion of grilses as salmon as we do in others; for instance, at our fishing at the Foyle, it consists almost entirely of grilse;" p. 110. When they first appear in the rivers, they are from 1 to 3 lb. in weight, "and they increase gradually every week during the time we kill them." At the end of the season, they weigh ❝8, 9, or 10lb." He likewise states, "Our water keepers tell me that they very seldom see a salmon and grilse breeding together, but they have seen it occasionally, but not generally-very seldom ;" p. 113. There can be little doubt, that the term Grilse is used in general to denote a young salmon, though the same epithet is probably bestowed upon a distinct species of the genus Salmo, with which it seems to be confounded.

III. TROUT.-Sir H. Davy considers Salmon-peal, Sewen, and Bulltrout, as constituting one species, the Salmo Eriox of Linnæus, the most correct appellation of which is Sea-trout. The Salmo Trutta of Linnæus, however, has been universally regarded by British systematical writers as the common Sea-trout; and the Salmo Eriox is a very different species. The term Eriox, as first employed by Albertus Magnus in the thirteenth, and by Cuba in the fifteenth century, was considered by Artedi as referring to the common salmon! Linnæus afterwards employed the term as a trivial name to the S, maculis cinereis, cauda ex◄

up into the little streams to deposit the spawn; but the trout in the Moy are quite a different kind of trout from what we call in Scotland the salmon or sea-trout;" p. 134.

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tremo æquali" of Artedi, and the Gray of Willoughby and Ray. De Lasepede continues the term in its Linnæag sense; and, we may add, for the information of the learned chemist, that S. Trutta and S. Eriox are both well cha- IV. WHITLING.-Sir H. Davy conracterised species and natives of Great siders this fish as a young salmon, and Britain. Let him count the rays of states, that they are without visible the gill-flap if he doubts. Mr Johnova or spermatic secretion; are found ston says, "Although in some friths in salmon rivers, a mile or two from and rivers, where there are a great the sea, and which return to the sea, many salmon, there are also great without attempting a farther migranumbers of trout; yet in others, where tion;" p. 145. Mr Little, who knows there are a great many salmon, there this fish by different names in differare very few trout;" p. 38. Mr Hal- ent rivers, as hirlings, whiteings, or liday states, "In the Annan I have finnocks, declares, “We never see such known us get more sea-trouts in one a fish in Ireland, in the rivers we are day, than we shall get in the Tay in a concerned with. In the rivers that whole year" p. 64. Mr Little de- run into the Solway Frith and in the clares, "that the sea-trout are not Tweed, and in some other rivers, they found in all salmon rivers. We do not are found; but in a great number of see anything like the Spey-trout, or rivers they are not. They are only like the trout that is caught in the found in those rivers where they breed. Solway Frith, or like the trout that is There are a few in the river Tay, shacaught in the Tweed, in any of our ped, and headed, and tailed like a salfishings in Ireland. They do not breed, mon. They are from 12 to 15 inches nor are they to be seen there;" p. 111. in length. Some of them will eut up Sir H. Davy states, that "the differ- red, but they are mostly white. We ent habits of the salmon and sea-trout frequently do not find them in rivers are well demonstrated in the Moy, near where salmon are; there are many riBallena in Ireland," on which there is vers where there are salmon, where no a large pile near the town, and which, such fish are known; we see them gobelow the fall, is joined by a consider- ing down kelt in the same way as we able stream. "The salmon leap this see a large salmon going down after fall; the sea-trout almost all spawn in spawning" p. 110. Mr Halliday the smaller stream, a few miles from states, "that in Carlisle they call them the sea;" p. 144. There is some whitings; in Annan hirlings; and in strange blunder here. Mr Little, the the north finnocks. I never saw any tenant of the fishings on the Moy, in the Tay; but I have taken 100 says, there are trout, "but not the dozen in the Annan at one draught. trout called the Sea-trout;" and with It is about 12 inches long. The tail regard to the pile or fall which ob of the hirling is straighter than that structs the progress of the trout, and of the salmon or grilse, and it is quite over which the salmon leap, he adds, a short-headed fish; neither does the "They can go over it at tide-time, head of the hirling shoot like that of without leaping: after the tide rises, the salmon when he is going to spawn. they can go over it;" p. 134. He The largest I ever saw was about ths likewise observes, "A trout goes very of a pound. My reasons for believing far up the river to spawn. "The that they are not the young salmon smaller the fish is, they go the higher are, that when they go up the ri

vers, they are as full of spawn for their size as the salmon is; and when they come down in the spring of the year kelts, we are getting the young salmon;" p. 63. Mr Johnstone agrees with the preceding witnesses, in asserting the ordinary presence of ova and spermatic secretion, and in considering this fish as a distinct species. "They are called hirlings on the Scotch side of the Solway; whitings on the English side; hirlings, whitings, or whitlings, at Berwick; whitelings in the Tay; and finnocks in the north of Scotland;" p. 37.

V. PAR.-Mr Little is the only witness who is questioned in reference to this fish. "I have seen them; but I consider them merely a fresh-water fish, or a species of fish by themselves, unconnected with our salmon-fisheries altogether;" p. 113.

It is probable, that some species of migratory trouts have not been noticed at all. The river fishers are better acquainted with the trouts than the frith fishers. But we return to the HABITS OF THE SALMON, as furnishing materials for regulating the legislative enactments of this kingdom.

Before entering upon this branch of the subject, it may be proper to state, that the present legal time for begin ning the salmon-fishing varies in different rivers, from the 10th December (in the Tay) to the 12th March (in the Solway;) and that the fishing-season legally ends, according to the rivers, from the 12th August (Ireland generally) to the 4th December (in the Teign.) How far these terms are suitable or improper, will presently ap

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irregularly, at other periods. Mr Little says, "There are some rivers in which you will get some good salmon all the year round;" p. 114. In the spring months, few fish enter rivers; they rapidly increase in numbers as the summer advances; and in autumn, again, they begin to decrease, leaving the winter months, as to the ascending migration, to constitute a dead season.

The condition of rivers in the spring influences the movements of the salmon. J. Proudfoot states, that, "in the spring of the year, the fish always occupy the north side of the Tay (i. e. the sunny side of the river.) The north side fishing kills far more fish than the south side;" p. 28. Mr Little states, that, in "the river Shannon, the salmon fishery is nearly over by the middle of May," p. 114; and that he does "not get many fish in the Foyle of any kind till the end of May;" p. 112.

When the great differences existing between different rivers, in the quantity, temperature, and contents of their waters, are duly considered, we need not wonder at the influence these circumstances may exert on the motions of salmon; but if we make a difference in the close season between one river and another, we must, with equal propriety, establish a similar distinction between the south side and the north side of every river.

In rivers, during the early spring months, the fisheries are seldom productive: even Lord Gray's fishings on the sunny side of the Tay, according to J. Gillies, "taking the average from the 10th December till the end of January, will not, one season with another, pay the expenses, or little more. There are some very good fishings in the month of February; perhaps in the month of February there will be ten days of those fishings, and scarcely take one fish." The same witness adds, in reference to the kind of fish taken

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