go up the river without either being taken, or stopt. The consequence of this was, that all the fisheries in the river were ruined, and his own among the number. This hutch being placed in the full stream, impeded the course of the water so much, that it broke out a new channel by the side. Thus the object of the hutch was defeated; and falling into decay, it was never after repaired, but in process of time, went entirely to pieces. The foundation of it was visible a few years since. since. In the course of two or three years after, the river had found a new channel, and this hutch, which has ever since, and to the present day, gone by the name of Seymour's Hutch, was destroyed, and salmon became as plentiful as ever, resuming its ordinary price of two-pence and three-halfpence per pound. During the existence of Seymour's Hutch, such was the scarcity of salmon, that it sold for two shillings and sixpence per pound; and I have heard an old man, who lately died at the age of ninety, positively declare, that he himself sold a salmon for as much money as enabled him to purchase, and that he actually did with the money buy, a cow and calf. I have no reason to doubt the truth of it; nor is it at all improbable. The old man used to mention the circumstance as a sort of wonder, that he should have bought a cow and calf with a salmon; and he would then explain the fact, thus: Suppose the fish to be only thirty pounds, (but it might be forty or fifty,) at two shillings and sixpence, its value would be three pounds fifteen shillings. This sum would,

I should think, seventy years ago, have purchased a small cow and calf. I cannot, of course, vouch for the truth of his assertion, but the man declared it when at a very great age, and when he could have no motive or interest in telling me a falsehood. This is an additional proof, if any were required, that the grand obstacle to the increase of the salmon fisheries, is, the impediment which the fish every where meet with in ascending and descending the rivers; the two grand evils are, the obstructions by fish-locks and the spearing. But it is curious to see how interest sports with principle. The spearers cry out against the weirs and obstructions, because such weirs and obstructions spoil their sport and diminish the product of their harvest; and the owners of weirs are for punishing the spearers with the utmost severity of the law. Thus the one is for plucking out the mote that is in his brother's eye, without perceiving the beam that is in his own. Every one has a right to make the most of his property; but that right should be exercised fairly. The right of taking fish is a kind of common right; one man takes them at one place, and another man at another place; and so on to a third and a twentieth; but if the first man can erect an impervious weir, to bring up all the fish at one particular place where he may have the whole at once, how are the others to have their rights? If a man has a right to stock a common with fifty sheep, and were to turn in five hundred, the utmost number it could

feed, where would be the use of the pasturage to the other commoners? In this conflict of private views, the public is neglected and forgotten; but the public have nevertheless an interest and a right; and that interest and right ought to be asserted and established.

I have mentioned the circumstance of the destruction of salmon by Seymour's Hutch, as the obvious effect of an equally obvious cause, not only to corroborate the preceding remarks, but to refute an opinion which has lately gone abroad, rather specious at first view, but on close investigation obviously groundless and untenable; and to draw a comparison between the probable correctness of this new opinion on the diminished quantity of salmon, and the cause of that scarceness, as previously stated. The new opinion is, that it is owing to the great use of lime in agriculture, in the western counties, that salmon are so scarce. Now let us enquire into the reasonableness and consistency of this opinion. Lime destroys all other fresh-water fish, as well as salmon. That the eel and the trout almost instantaneously die before it, is notorious and indisputable; but eel and trout are as plentiful as ever. If the use of lime in agriculture destroyed the salmon, it would destroy the other fish it does not destroy the other fish; therefore, it destroys not the salmon. If the lime used for manure on certain grounds, though they have so little communication with rivers, as to render it very improbable that its baneful

effects should ever reach them, destroyed any salmon, it would destroy all. If it destroyed the salmon generally, why did it not destroy those hundreds of poor pregnant and emaciated fish, which have been lying at the pool of Totness weir throughout the winter, waiting for an opportunity, and almost beating themselves to pieces, in the ineffectual attempt, to surmount that destructive nuisance? These fish were not destroyed by lime used in agriculture; they were not destroyed at all, until they were taken in nets, after the defence of the river expired. Some of these fish, the females, which were in such a state that they could not be made use of, were put above the weir; the others, all unseasonable, were clandestinely sold about the town, at a low price. The poor forlorn females. were sent up the rivers to breed, without their kippers; so there must have been a rare increase.

24.

ON THE CLOSE SEASON, OR THE TIMES NECESSARY TO PUT THE RIVERS IN DEFENCE.

I

HAVE already briefly observed, that the season for taking salmon ought to be the six summer months, commencing with April and ending with September; that they do not make a very frequent appearance in our rivers early in the year, and that therefore new fish are then always scarce and dear. The reason is evident:- the old fish are either at that time destroyed in the mill-leats; shut up in the rivers unfit to be taken and not eatable; or they are in the sea, or on the coasts, and have not returned to the rivers in a purified and wholesome condition. In April, after having had the advantage of feeding in the sea, they begin to be rich and fat, and return to the rivers. They so continue the whole summer, increasing as it advances, rising with the flow of the tide, and particularly attracted with the freshets after heavy rains. This is the time, namely the six summer months, and the only time that they should be caught, and then only with the legal net. If properly protected in the other six months, they would then be so abundant as to be sufficient for every one, for every place, and for every purpose; the superfluity of the summer would furnish, in a