CHAPTER V.

THE NATURAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE SALMON.

The Salmon our best-known Fish—Controversies and Anomalies—Food

of Salmon—The Parr Controversy—Experiments by Shaw, Young, and

Hogg—Grilse: its Rate of Growth—Do Salmon make Two Voyages to the Sea

in each Year?—The Best Way of marking Young Salmon—Enemies of the

Fish—Avarice of the Lessees—The Rhine Salmon—Size of Fish—Killing of

Grilse—Rivers Tay, Spey, Tweed, Severn, etc.—The Tay Fisheries—Report

on English Fisheries—Upper and Lower Proprietors.

So many books have been written during the last few years about this

beautiful and valuable animal that I do not require to occupy a very

large portion of this work with either its natural or economic history;

for of the two hundred and fifty kinds of fish which inhabit the rivers

and seas of Britain, the salmon (_Salmo salar_) is the one about which

we know more than any other, and chiefly for these reasons:—It is of

greater value as property than any other fish; its large size better

admits of observation than smaller members of the fish tribe; and,

in consequence of its migratory instinct, we have access to it at

those seasons of its life when to observe its habits is the certain

road to information. And yet, with all these advantages, or rather in

consequence of them, there has been a vast amount of controversy, oral

and written, as to the birth, breeding, and growth of the salmon.

There have been controversies as to the impregnation of its eggs, as

to the growth of the fish from the parr to the smolt stage; also as

to the kind of food it eats, how long it remains in the salt water,

and whether it makes one or two voyages to the sea per annum. There

has likewise been a grilse controversy, as well as a rate-of-growth

quarrel. These scientific and literary combats have been fought at

intervals, and, to speak generally, have exhibited the temper and the

learning of the combatants in about equal proportions. The dates of

these controversies are not so easily fixed as might be desired, seeing

that they are either scattered at intervals throughout the Transactions

of learned societies, buried in heavy encyclopædias, or altogether lost

in the columns of newspapers. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say

that during the past quarter of a century there has been a committee of

inquiry either in the House of Lords or Commons, a royal commission, a

blue book, or an Act of Parliament, every year on behalf of the salmon,

besides numerous publications by private individuals.

Although no person now believes the assertion of the Billingsgate

naturalist, that salmon-eggs come to maturity in a period of

forty-eight hours, or that other authority who told the world that as

soon as the fish burst from the ovum—a smolt six inches long coming out

of a pea!—it was conducted to the sea by its parents, there is much of

the romantic in the history of this monarch of the brook, and about the

manner in which the varied disputed points have been solved, if indeed

some of these points be yet completely settled.

I shall not again enter into the impregnation theory, having said as

much as was necessary about that portion of my subject in a previous

division of this work; but will proceed at once to give a summary of

the parr controversy, and a few statements about the grilse and the

full-grown fish as well.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

According to the state of knowledge some five-and-thirty years ago—and

I need not go further back at present—the smolt was said to be the

first stage of salmon-life, and the abounding parr was thought to be

a distinct fish. Now we know better, and are able to regulate our

salmon-fisheries accordingly. The spawn deposited by the parent fish in

October, November, and December, lies in the river till about April or

May, when it quickens into life. I have already described the changes

apparent in the salmon-egg from the time of its fructification till

the birth of the fish. The infant fry are of course very helpless, and

are seldom seen during the first week or two of their existence, when

they carry about with them as a provision for food a portion of the egg

from whence they emanated. At that time the fish is about half an inch

in size, and presents such a very singular appearance that no person

seeing it would ever believe that it would grow into a fine grilse or

salmon. About fifty days is required for the animal to assume the shape

of a perfect fish; before that time it might be taken for anything

else than a young salmon. The engravings on this and the succeeding

pages, which are exactly half the size of life, show the progress of

the salmon during the first two years of its existence, at the end of

which time it is certain to have changed into a smolt. After eating

up its umbilical bag, which it takes a period of from twenty to forty

days to accomplish, the young salmon may be seen about its birthplace,

timid and weak, hiding about the stones, and always apparently of the

same colour as the surroundings of its sheltering place. The transverse

bars of the parr very speedily become apparent, and the fish begins

to grow with considerable rapidity, especially if it is to be a

twelvemonth’s smolt, and this is very speedily seen at such a good

point of observation as the Stormontfield ponds. The smallest of the

specimens given in the preceding page represents a parr at the age of

two months; the next in size shows the same fish two months older; and

the remaining fish is six months old. The young fish continue to grow

for a little longer than two years before the whole number make the

change from parr to smolt and seek the salt water. Half of the quantity

of any one hatching, however, begin to change at a little over twelve

months from the date of their coming to life; and thus there is the

extraordinary anomaly, as I shall by and by show, of fish of the same

hatching being at one and the same time parr of half an ounce in weight

and grilse weighing four pounds. The smolts of the first year return

from the sea whilst their brothers and sisters are timidly disporting

in the breeding shallows of the upper streams, having no desire for

change, and totally unable to endure the salt water, which would at

once kill them. The sea-feeding must be favourable, and the condition

of the fish well suited to the salt water, to ensure such rapid

growth—a rapidity which every visit of the fish to the ocean serves

but to confirm. Various fish, while in the grilse stage, have been

marked to prove this; and at every migration they returned to their

breeding stream with added weight and improved health. What the salmon

feeds upon while in the salt water is not well known, as the digestion

of that fish is so rapid as to prevent the discovery of food in their

stomachs when they are captured and opened. Guesses have been made, and

it is likely that these approximate to the truth; but the old story of

the rapid voyage of the salmon to the North Pole and back again turns

out, like the theory upon which was built up the herring-migration

romance, to be a mere myth.

None of our naturalists have yet attempted to elucidate that mystery of

salmon life which converts one-half of the fish into sea-going smolts

while as yet the other moiety remain as parr. It has been investigated

so far at the breeding-ponds at Stormontfield, but without resolving

the question. There is another point of doubt as to salmon life which

I shall also have a word to say about—namely, whether or not that fish

makes two visits annually to the sea; likewise whether it be probable

that a smolt remains in the salt water for nearly a year before it

becomes a grilse. As a salmon only stays, as is popularly supposed, a

very short time in the salt water, and as it is one of the quickest

swimming fishes we have, so that it is able to reach a distant river in

a very short space of time, it is most desirable that we should know

what it does with itself when it is not migrating from one water to the

other; because, according to the opinion of some naturalists, it would

speedily become so deteriorated in the river as to be unequal to the

slightest exertion.

The mere facts in the biography of the salmon are not very numerous; it

is the fiction and mystery with which the life of this particular fish

has been invested by those ignorant of its history that has made it a

greater object of interest than it would otherwise have become. This

will be obvious as I briefly trace the amount of controversy and state

the arguments which have been expended on the three divisions of its

life.

THE PARR CONTROVERSY.—None of the controversies concerning the growth

of the salmon have been so hotly carried on or have proved so fertile

in argument as the parr dispute. At certain seasons of the year,

most notably in the months of spring and early summer, our salmon

streams and their tributaries become crowded, as if by magic, with

a pretty little fish, known in Scotland as the parr, and in England

as the brandling, the peel, the samlet, etc. The parr was at one

time so wonderfully plentiful, that farmers and cottars who resided

near a salmon river used not unfrequently, after filling the family

frying-pan, to feed their pigs with the dainty little fish! Countless

thousands were annually killed by juvenile anglers, and even so lately

as twenty years ago it never occurred either to country gentlemen or

their farmers that these parr were young salmon. Indeed, the young of

the salmon, as then recognised, was only known as a smolt or smout.

Parr were thought, as I have already said, to be distinct fish of the

minor or dwarf kind. Some large-headed anglers, however, had their

doubts about the little parr, and naturalists found it difficult to

procure specimens of the fish with ova or milt in them. Dr. Knox,

the anatomist, asserted that the parr was a hybrid belonging to no

particular species of fish, but a mixture of many; and it is curious

enough that although this fish was declared over and over again to be a

separate species, no one ever found a female parr containing roe. The

universal exclamation of naturalists for many a long year was always:

It is a quite distinct species, and not the young of any larger fish.

The above drawing represents a parr, the engraving being exactly half

the size of life.

[Illustration: PARR ONE YEAR OLD.

Half the natural size.]

This “distinct-species” dogma might have been still prevalent, had not

the question been taken in hand and solved by practical men. Before

mentioning the experiments of Shaw and Young, it will be curious

to note the varieties of opinion which were evoked during the parr

controversy, which has existed in one shape or another for something

like two hundred years. As a proof of the difficulty of arriving at

a correct conclusion amidst the conflict of evidence, I may cite the

opinion of Yarrell, who held the parr to be a distinct fish. “That the

parr,” he says, “is not the young of the salmon, or, indeed, of any

other of the large species of Salmonidæ, as still considered by some,

is sufficiently obvious from the circumstance that parr by hundreds

may be taken in the rivers all the summer, long after the fry of the

year of the larger migratory species have gone down to the sea.” Mr.

Yarrell also says, “The smolt or young salmon is by the fishermen of

some rivers called ‘a laspring;’” and explains, “The laspring of some

rivers is the young of the true salmon; but in others, as I know from

having had specimens sent me, the laspring is really _only a parr_.”

Mr. Yarrell further states the prevalence of an opinion “that parrs

were hybrids, and all of them males.” Many gentlemen who would not

admit that parr were salmon in their first stage have lived to change

their opinion.

My friend Mr. Robert Buist, the intelligent and very obliging

conservator of the Stormontfield breeding-ponds, is one of the

gentlemen who now finds, from the results of most accurate experiments

conducted under his own personal superintendence, that he was in error

in holding the parr to be a distinct fish. A very eminent living

naturalist, who has now seen all the stages of the question, said at

one time that the parr had no connection whatever with the migratory

salmon; and also that “males are found so far advanced as to have the

milt flow on being handled; but at the same time, and indeed all the

females which I have examined, had the roe in a backward state, and

they have not been discovered spawning in any of the shallow streams

or lesser rivulets, like the trout.” Such extracts could be multiplied

to almost any extent, but I can only give one more, and it is from

the same writer. After minutely describing the anatomy of the fish,

he thus sums up: “In this state, therefore, I have no hesitation in

considering the parr not only distinct, but one of the best and most

constantly marked species we have.”

The first person who “took a thought about the matter”—_i.e._ as to

whether the parr was or was not the young of the salmon—and arrived

at any solid conclusion, was James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, who,

in his usual eccentric way, took some steps to verify his opinions.

He had, while herding his sheep, many opportunities of watching

the fishing-streams, and, like most of his class, he wielded his

fishing-rod with considerable dexterity. While angling in the

tributaries of some of the Border salmon-streams he had often caught

the parr as it was changing into the smolt stage, and had, after close

observation, come to the conclusion that the little parr was none

other than the infant salmon. Mr. Hogg did not keep his discovery a

secret, and the more his facts were controverted by the naturalists

of the day the louder became his proclamations. He had suspected all

his life that parr were salmon in their first stage. He would catch

a parr with a few straggling scales upon it; he would look at this

fish and think it queer; instantly he would catch another a little

better covered with silver scales, but all loose, and not adhering

to the body. Again he would catch a smolt, manifestly a smolt, all

covered with the white silver scales, yet still rather loose upon

its skin, and these would come off in his hand. On removing these he

found the parr, with the blue finger marks below the new scales; and

that these were young salmon then became as manifest to the shepherd

as that a lamb, if suffered to live, would become a sheep. Wondering

at this, he marked a great number of the lesser fish, and offered

rewards (characteristically enough of whisky) to the peasantry to

bring him any fish that had evidently undergone the change predicted

by him. Whenever this conclusion was settled in his mind, the

Shepherd at once proclaimed his new-gained knowledge. “What will the

fishermen of Scotland think,” said he, “when I assure them, on the

faith of long experience and observation, and on the word of one

who can have no interest in instilling an untruth into their minds,

that every insignificant parr with which the Cockney fisher fills

his basket is a salmon lost?” These crude attempts of the impulsive

shepherd of Ettrick—and he was hotly opposed by Mr. Buist, now of

Stormontfield—were not without their fruits; indeed they were so

successful as quite to convince him that parr were young salmon in

their first stage.

As I have had occasion to mention the opinions of James Hogg on the

salmon question, I may be allowed to state here that the following

amusing bit of dialogue on the habits of the salmon once took place

between the Ettrick Shepherd and a friend:—

_Shepherd_—“I maintain that ilka saumon comes aye back again frae the

sea till spawn in its ain water.”

_Friend_—“Toots, toots, Jamie! hoo can it manage till do that; hoo, in

the name o’ wonder, can a fish, travelling up a turbid water frae the

sea, know when it reaches the entrance to its birthplace, or that it

has arrived at the tributary that was its cradle?”

_Shepherd_—“Man, the great wonder to me is no hoo the fish get back,

but hoo they find their way till the sea first ava, seein’ that they’ve

never been there afore!”

The parr question, however, was determined in a rather more formal

mode than that adopted by the author of “Bonny Kilmenny.” Mr. Shaw, a

forester in the employment of the Duke of Buccleuch, took up the case

of the parr in 1833, and succeeded in solving the problem. In order

that he might watch the progressive growth of the parr, Mr. Shaw began

by capturing seven of these little fishes on the 11th of July 1833;

these he placed in a pond supplied by a stream of excellent water,

where they grew and flourished apace till early in April 1834, between

which date and the 17th of the following May they became smolts; and

all who saw them on that day when they were caught by Mr. Shaw were

thoroughly convinced that they were true salmon smolts. In March 1835

Mr. Shaw repeated his experiments with twelve parrs of a larger size,

taken also from the river. On being transferred to the pond, these

so speedily acquired the scales of the smolt that Mr. Shaw assumed

a period of two years as being the time at which the change took

place from the parr to the smolt. The late Mr. Young of Invershin, a

well-known authority on salmon life, was experimenting at the same time

as Mr. Shaw, and for the same purpose—namely, to determine if parr were

the young of the salmon, and, if so, at what period they became smolts

and proceeded to the sea. Well, Mr. Shaw said two years, and Mr. Young,

who was at that time manager of the Duke of Sutherland’s fisheries,

said the change took place in twelve months; others, again, who took

an interest in the controversy, said that three years elapsed before

the change was made. The various parties interested held each their

own opinion, and it may even be said that the disputation still goes

on; for although a numerous array of facts bearing on the migration

have been gathered, we are still in ignorance of any regulating

principle on which the migratory change is based, or to account for the

impulse which impels a brood of fish to proceed to sea divided into

two moieties. Mr. Shaw watched his young fry with unceasing care, and

described their growth with great minuteness, for a period extending

over two years, when his parrs became smolts. Mr. Young, in a letter

from Invershin, dated January 1853, says, pointedly enough—“The fry

remain in the river one whole year, from the time they are hatched to

the time they assume their silvery coat and take their first departure

for the sea. All the experiments we have made on the ova and fry of the

salmon have exactly corresponded to the same effects, and none of them

have taken longer in arriving at the smolt than the first year.”

Mr. Buist, in one of his letters on the progress of artificial breeding

at the Stormontfield ponds, says: “There is at present a mystery as

regards the progress of the young salmon. There can be no doubt that

all in our ponds are really and truly the offspring of salmon; no other

fish, not even the seed of them, could by any possibility get into

the ponds. Now we see that about one half have gone off as smolts,

returning in their season as grilses; the other half remain as parrs,

and the milt in the males is as much developed, in proportion to the

size of the fish, as their brethren of the same age seven to ten pounds

weight, whilst these same parrs in the ponds do not exceed one ounce

in weight. This is an anomaly in nature which I fear cannot be cleared

up at present. I hope, however, by proper attention, some light may

be thrown upon it from our experiments next spring. The female parrs

in the pond have their ova so undeveloped that the granulations can

scarcely be discovered by a lens of some power. It is strange that

both Young’s and Shaw’s theories are likely to prove correct, though

seemingly so contradictory, and the much-disputed point settled, that

parrs (such as ours at least) are truly the young of the salmon.”

It is quite certain that parr are young salmon, and that a parr

becomes a smolt and goes to the sea, although there are still to be

found, no doubt, a few wrong-headed people who will not be convinced

on the point, but pridefully maintain all the old salmon theories and

prejudices. With them the parr is still a distinct fish, the smolt is

the true young of _Salmo salar_ in its first stage, and a grilse is

just a grilse and nothing more. However, these old-world people will

in time pass away (there is no hope of convincing them), and then the

modern views of salmon biography, founded as they are on laborious

personal investigation, will ultimately prevail.

THE SMOLT AND GRILSE.—But the great parr mystery is still unsolved—that

is to say, no one knows on what _principle_ the transformation is

accomplished; how it is that only half of a brood ripen into smolts

at the end of a year, the other moiety taking double that period to

arrive at the same stage of progress. Some scientific visitors to the

Stormontfield ponds say that this anomaly is natural enough, and that

similar ratios of growth may be observed among all animals; but it

is curious that just exactly the half of a brood—and the eggs be it

remembered all from adult salmon, and therefore similar in ripeness

and other conditions—should change into smolts at the end of a year,

leaving a moiety in the ponds as parr for another twelvemonth.

The most remarkable phase in the life of the salmon is its

extraordinary instinct for change. After the parr has become a smolt,

it is found that the desire to visit the sea is so intense, especially

in pond-bred fish, as to cause them to leap from their place of

confinement, in the hope of attaining at once their salt-water goal;

and of course the instinct of river-bred fish is equally strong on

this point—they all rush to the sea at their proper season. There are

various opinions as to the cause of the migratory instinct in the

salmon. Some people say it finds in the sea those rich feeding-grounds

which enable it to add so rapidly to its weight. It is quite certain

that the fish attains its primest condition while it is in the salt

water; those caught in the estuaries by means of stake or bag nets

being richer in quality, and esteemed far before the river fish. The

moment the salmon enters the fresh water it begins to decrease in

weight and fall from its high condition. It is a curious fact, and

a wise provision of nature, that the eel, which is also a migratory

fish, descends to spawn in the sea as the salmon is ascending to the

river-head for the same purpose; were the fact different, and both

fish to spawn in the river, the roe of the salmon would be completely

eaten up. In due time then, we find the silver-coated host leaving the

rippling cradle of its birth, and adventuring on the more powerful

stream, by which it is borne to the sea-fed estuary, or the briny ocean

itself. And this picturesque tour is repeated year after year, being

apparently the grand essential of salmon life.

[Illustration: SMOLT TWO YEARS OLD.

Half the natural size.]

It is pleasant, rod in hand, on a breezy spring day, while trying to

coax “the monarch of the brook” from his sheltering pool, to watch

this annual migration, and to note the passage of the bright-mailed

army adown the majestic river, that hurries on by busy corn-mill and

sweeps with a murmuring sound past hoar and ruined towers, washing

the pleasant lawns of country magnates or laving the cowslips on the

village meadow, and as it rolls ceaselessly ocean-ward, giving a

more picturesque aspect to the quaint agricultural villages and farm

homesteads which it passes in its course. During the whole length

of its pilgrimage the army of smolts pays a tribute to its enemies

in gradual decimation: it is attacked at every point of vantage;

at one place the smolts are taken prisoners by the hundred in some

well-contrived net, at another picked off singly by some juvenile

angler. The smolt is greedily devoured by the trout, the pike, and

various other enemies, which lie constantly in waiting for it, sure

of a rich feast at this annually-recurring migration. But the giant

and fierce battle which this infantile tribe has to fight is at the

point where the salt water begins to mingle with the stream, where are

assembled hosts of greedy monsters of the sea of all shapes and sizes,

from the porpoise and seal down to the young coal-fish, who dart with

inconceivable rapidity upon the defenceless shoal and play havoc with

the numbers.

Many naturalists dispute most lustily the assertion that the smolt

returns to the parental waters as a grilse the same year that it visits

the sea; and some writers have maintained that the young fish makes

a grand tour to the North Pole before it makes up its mind to “hark

back.” It has been pretty well proved, however, that the grilse may

have been the young smolt of the same year. A most remarkable fact in

the history of grilse is, that we kill them in thousands before they

have an opportunity of perpetuating their kind; indeed on some rivers

the annual slaughter of grilse is so enormous as palpably to affect

the “takes” of the big fish. It has been asserted, likewise, that the

grilse is a distinct fish, and not the young of the salmon in its early

stage. There has been a controversy as to the rate at which the salmon

increases in weight; and there have been numerous disputes about what

its instinct had taught it to “eat, drink, and avoid.”

It has been authoritatively settled, however, that grilse become

salmon; and, notwithstanding a recent opening up of this old sore, I

hold the experiments conducted by his Grace the Duke of Athole and

the late Mr. Young of Invershin to be quite conclusive. The latter

gentleman, in his little work on the salmon, after alluding to various

points in the growth of the fish, says:—“My next attempt was to

ascertain the rate of their growth during their short stay in salt

water, and for this purpose we marked spawned grilses, as near as we

could get to four pounds weight; these we had no trouble in getting

with a net in the pools below the spawning-beds, where they had

congregated together to rest, after the fatigues of depositing their

seed. All the fish above four pounds weight, as well as any under that

size, were returned to the river unmarked, and the others marked by

inserting copper wire rings into certain parts of their fins: this was

done in a manner so as not to interrupt the fish in their swimming

operations nor be troublesome to them in any way. After their journey

to sea and back again, we found that the four pound grilses had grown

into beautiful salmon, varying from nine to fourteen pounds weight. I

repeated this experiment for several years, and on the whole found the

results the same, and, as in the former marking, found the majority

returning in about eight weeks; and we have never among our markings

found a marked grilse go to sea and return a grilse, for they have

invariably returned salmon.”

The late Duke of Athole took a considerable interest in the grilse

question, and kept a complete record of all the fish that he had caused

to be marked; and in his Journal there is a striking instance of

rapidity of growth. A fish marked by his Grace was caught at a place

forty miles distant from the sea; it travelled to the salt water, fed,

and returned in the short space of thirty-seven days. The following is

his entry regarding this particular fish:—“On referring to my Journal,

I find that I caught this fish as a kelt this year, on the 31st of

March, with the rod, about two miles above Dunkeld Bridge, at which

time it weighed exactly ten pounds; so that, in the short space of

five weeks and two days, it had gained the almost incredible increase

of eleven pounds and a quarter; for, when weighed here on its arrival,

it was twenty-one pounds and a quarter.” There could be no doubt, Mr.

Young thinks, of the accuracy of this statement, for his Grace was most

correct in his observations, having tickets made for the purpose, and

numbered from one upwards, and the number and date appertaining to each

fish was carefully registered for reference.

As the fish grew so rapidly during their visit to the salt water,

people began to wonder what they fed on, and where they went. A

hypothesis was started of their visiting the North Pole; but it was

certain, from the short duration of their visit to the salt water that

they could proceed to no great distance from the mouth of the river

which admitted them to the sea. Hundreds of fish were dissected in

order to ascertain what they fed upon; but only on very rare occasions

could any traces of food be found in their stomachs. What, then, do the

salmon live upon? was asked. It is quite clear that salmon obtain in

the sea some kind of food for which they have a peculiar liking, and

upon which they rapidly grow fat; and it is very well known that after

they return to the fresh water they begin to lose their flesh and fall

off in condition. The rapid growth of the fish seems to imply that its

digestion must be rapid, and may perhaps account for there never being

food in its stomach when found; although I am bound to mention that

one gentleman who writes on this subject accounts for the emptiness of

the stomach by asserting that the salmon vomits at the moment of being

taken. The codfish again is frequently found with its stomach crowded;

in fact, I have seen the stomach of a large cod which formed quite a

small museum, having a large variety of articles “on board,” as the

fisherman said who caught it. Salmon seldom now attain a weight of more

than from fifteen to eighteen pounds. Long ago sixty-pound fish were

by no means rare, and twelve years back salmon weighing thirty and

forty pounds used frequently to be seen on our fishmongers’ counters.

In the golden age of the fisheries salmon are said to have been very

plentiful, and attainable for food by all classes of the community,

the price being a mere trifle; but railways now carry away our sea

produce with such rapidity to far-off cities and populous towns, where

there is an increasing demand that the price has risen to such a point

as to make this fish a luxury for the rich, and so induce the capture

of salmon of all weights. On all these points there has been a great

amount of disputation, chiefly carried on in the Transactions of

learned societies, and not therefore accessible to the general reader.

It is supposed by some writers that the salmon makes two voyages

in each year to the sea, and this is quite possible, as we may

judge from the data already given on this point; but sometimes the

salmon, although it can swim with great rapidity, takes many weeks to

accomplish its journey because of the state of the river. If there is

not sufficient water to flood the course, the fish have to remain in

the various pools they may reach till the state of the water admits

of their proceeding on their journey either to or from the sea. The

salmon, like all other fish, is faithful to its old haunts; and it is

known, in cases where more than one salmon-stream falls into the same

firth, that the fish of one stream will not enter another, and where

the stream has various tributaries suitable for breeding purposes, the

fish breeding in a particular tributary invariably return to it.

But, in reference to the idea of a double visit to the salt water, may

we not ask—particularly as we have the dates of the marked fish for

our guidance—what a salmon that is known to be only five weeks away

on its sea visit does with itself the rest of the year? A salmon, for

instance, spawning about “the den of Airlie,” on the Isla, some way

beyond Perth, has not to make a very long journey before it reaches

the salt water, and travelling at a rapid rate would soon accomplish

it; but supposing the fish took forty days for its passage there and

back, and allowing a period of six weeks for spawning and rest, there

are still many months of its annual life unaccounted for. It cannot,

according to the ideas of some writers, remain in the river forty-seven

weeks, because it would become so low in condition from the want of

a proper supply of nourishing food that it would die. It is this

fact that has led to the supposition of a double journey to the sea.

The Rev. Dugald Williamson, who wrote a pamphlet on this subject,

entertains no doubt about the double journey. “Salmon migrate twice

in the course of the year, and the instinct which drives them from

the sea in summer impels them to the sea in spring. Let the vernal

direction of the propensity be opposed, let a salmon be seized as it

descends and confined in a fresh-water pond or lake, and what is its

fate? Before preparing to quit the river it had suffered severely in

strength, bulk, and general health, and, imprisoned in an atmosphere

which had become unwholesome, it soon begins to languish, and in the

course of the season expires: the experiment has been tried, and the

result is well known. This being an ascertained and unquestionable

fact, is it a violent or unfair inference that a similar result obtains

in the case of those salmon that are forced back, from whatever cause,

to the sea, that the salt-water element is as fatal to the pregnant

fish of autumn as the fresh-water element is to the spent fish in

spring?... If there is any truth in these conjectures, they suggest

the most powerful reasons for _resisting_ or _removing_ obstructions

in the estuary of a river.” The riddle of this double migration of the

salmon is likely still to puzzle us. It is said that the impelling

force of the migratory instinct is, that the fish is preyed upon in

the salt water by a species of crustaceous insect, which forces it to

seek the fresh waters of its native river; again, that while the fresh

water destroys these sea-lice a new kind infests it in the river,

thus necessitating a return to the sea. My own experience leads me to

believe that salmon can exist perfectly well in the fresh water for

months at a time, suffering but little deterioration in weight, but

never, so far as I could ascertain, growing while in the fresh streams,

although it is certain they feed. It is a well-known fact that the parr

cannot live in salt water. I have both tried the experiment myself and

seen it tried by others; the parr invariably die when placed in contact

with the sea-water.

Mr. William Brown, in his painstaking account of _The Natural History

of the Salmon_, also bears his testimony on this part of the salmon

question:—“Until the parr takes on the smolt scales, it shows no

inclination to leave the fresh water. It cannot live in salt water.

This fact was put to the test at the ponds, by placing some parrs in

salt water—the water being brought fresh from the sea at Carnoustie;

and immediately on being immersed in it the fish appeared distressed,

the fins standing stiff out, the parr-marks becoming a brilliant

ultramarine colour, and the belly and sides of a bright orange. The

water was often renewed, but they all died, the last that died living

nearly five hours. After being an hour in the salt water, they appeared

very weak and unable to rise from the bottom of the vessel which

contained them, the body of the fish swelling to a considerable extent.

This change of colour in the fish could not be attributed to the colour

of the vessel which held them, for on being taken out they still

retained the same brilliant colours.”

All controversies relating to the growth of salmon may now be held

as settled. It has been proved that the parr is the young of the

salmon; the various changes which it undergoes during its growth have

been ascertained, and the increase of bulk and weight which accrues

in a given period is now well understood. But we still require much

information as to the “habits” of fish of the salmon kind.

In a recent conversation with Mr. Marshall of Stormontfield, while

comparing notes on some of the disputed points of salmon growth, we

both came to the conclusion that the following dates, founded on the

experiments conducted at Stormontfield, might be taken as marking

the chief stages in the life of a salmon. An egg deposited in the

breeding-boxes say in December 1852 yielded a fish in April 1853; that

fish remained as a parr till a little later than the same period of

1854, when, being seized with its migratory instinct, and having upon

it the protecting scales of the smolt, it departed from the pond into

the river Tay on its way to the sea, having previously had conferred

upon it a certain mark by which it could be known if recaptured on its

return. It was recaptured as a grilse within less than three months

of its departure (July), and weighed about four pounds. Being marked

once more, it was again sent away to endure the dangers of the deep;

and lo! was once more taken, this time a salmon of the goodly weight

of ten pounds! But there comes in here the question if it was the same

fish, for it is said that the smolt in some cases remains a whole

winter in the sea, and therefore that the fish I have been alluding to

was a smolt that had never come back as a grilse. I have a theory that

half of the brood of smolts sent to sea do remain over the winter and

come back as salmon, while the others come back almost immediately as

grilse. It is possible, however, that any particular fish may lose its

river for a season, and be in some other water for a time as a grilse,

and then finding its birth-stream come once again to its “procreant

cradle.” The rapidity of salmon growth, however, I consider to be

undoubtedly proved.

A good deal has been said in various quarters about the best way of

marking a young salmon so that at some future stage of its life it may

be easily identified. Cutting off the dead fin is not thought a good

plan of marking, because such a mark may be accidentally imitated and

so mislead those interested, or it may be wilfully imitated by persons

wishing to mislead. Of the smolts sent away from the Stormontfield

ponds during May 1855, 1300 were marked in a rather common way—viz.

by cutting off the second dorsal fin—and twenty-two of these marked

fish were taken as grilse during that same summer, the first being

caught on the 7th of July, when it weighed three pounds. Mr. Buist,

who took charge of the experiments, was quite convinced that a much

larger number of the marked fish than twenty-two was caught, but many

of the fishermen, having an aversion to the system of pond-breeding,

took no pains to discover whether or not the grilse they caught had the

pond-mark, and so the chance of still further verifying the rate of

salmon growth was lost. A reward offered by Mr. Buist of 2s. per pound

weight for each grilse that might be brought to his office, led to an

imitation of the mark and the perpetration of several petty frauds

in order to get the money. The mark was frequently imitated, and one

or two fish were brought to Mr. Buist which almost deceived him into

the belief of their being some of the real marked fish. As Mr. Buist

says—“So cunningly had this deception been gone about, that a casual

observer might have been deceived. When the fin was cut off the recent

wound was far too palpable; and to hide this the man cut a piece of

skin from another fish and fixed it upon the wounded part. I examined

this fish, which was lying alongside of an undoubted pond-marked fish,

which had the skin and scales grown over the cut, and I am satisfied

that it would be impossible to imitate the true mark by any process

except by marking the fish while young.”[5] Peter Marshall and also Mr.

Buist agree with me in saying that the number of fish taken, each being

minus the dead fin, was a sufficient proof that these fish were really

the pond-bred ones returned as grilse. It is impossible that twenty

or thirty grilse could have all been accidentally maimed within a few

weeks, and each present the same—the very same appearance. Various

other plans of marking were tried by the authorities at Stormontfield,

some of which were partially successful, and added another link to the

chain of evidence, which proves at any rate that many individual fish

have grown from the smolt to the grilse state in the course of a very

few weeks.

[Illustration: FISHES OF THE SALMON FAMILY.

1. Salmon.

2. Grilse.

3. Sea-trout.

4. Herling.

]

Leaving the salmon as an object of natural history, and looking at it

as an article of commerce, I find that there exists a considerable

dread of its speedy extinction, which, taking into account the state

of the fisheries, is not at all to be wondered at. The English

salmon-fisheries have utterly declined; the Irish fisheries are

decaying; and the eagerness with which the Scotch people are rushing to

Parliament for new laws indicates a fear of a similar fate overtaking

the fisheries of the North. The “breeches-pocket” view of the question

has recently become of considerable importance, in consequence of

this fear of failing supplies; for the commerce carried on in this

particular fish has been at the rate of over £100,000 a year; and

although our salmon-fisheries are not nearly equal in value to the

herring and white fisheries, still the individual salmon is our most

tangible fish, and brings to its owner a larger sum of money than any

other member of the fish family. Indeed, of late years this “monarch of

the brook” has become emphatically the rich man’s fish; its price for

table purposes, at certain seasons of the year, being only compatible

with a large income; and liberty to play one’s rod on a salmon river

is a privilege paid for at a high figure per annum. Such facts at once

elevate _Salmo salar_ to the highest regions of luxury: certainly,

salmon can no longer find a place on the tables of the poor; for we

shall never again hear of its selling at twopence per pound, or of

farm-servants bargaining not to be compelled to eat it oftener than

twice a week.

At every stage of its career the salmon is surrounded by enemies.

At the very moment of spawning, the female is watched by a horde of

devourers, who instinctively flock to the breeding-grounds in order

to feast on the ova. The hungry pike, the lethargic perch, the greedy

trout, the very salmon itself, are lying in wait, all agape for the

palatable roe, and greedily swallowing whatever quantity the current

carries down. Then the water-fowl eagerly pounces on the precious

deposit the moment it has been forsaken by the fish; and if it

escape being gobbled up by such cormorants, the spawn may be washed

away by a flood, or the position of the bed may be altered, and the

ova be destroyed perhaps for want of water. As an instance of the

loss incidental to salmon-spawning in the natural way, I may just

mention that a whitling of about three-quarters of a pound weight

has been taken in the Tay with three hundred impregnated salmon ova

in its stomach! If this fish had been allowed to dine and breakfast

at this rate during the whole of the spawning season it would have

been difficult to estimate the loss our fisheries sustained by his

voracity. No sooner do the eggs ripen, and the young fish come to life,

than they are exposed, in their defenceless state, to be preyed upon by

all the enemies already enumerated; while as parr they have been taken

out of our streams in such quantities as to be made available for the

purposes of pig-feeding and as manure! Some economists estimate that

only one egg out of every thousand ever becomes a full-grown salmon.

Mr. Thomas Tod Stoddart calculated that one hundred and fifty millions

of salmon ova are annually deposited in the river Tay; of which only

fifty millions, or one-third, come to life and attain the parr stage;

that twenty millions of these parrs in time become smolts, and that

their number is ultimately diminished to 100,000; of which 70,000 are

caught, the other 30,000 being left for breeding purposes. Sir Humphrey

Davy calculates that if a salmon produce 17,000 roe, only 800 of these

will arrive at maturity. It is well, therefore, that the female fish

yields 1000 eggs for each pound of her weight; for a lesser degree of

fecundity, keeping in view the enormous waste of life indicated by

these figures, would long since—especially taking into account the

various very destructive modes of fishing that used a few years ago to

be in use—have resulted in the utter extinction of this valuable fish.

[Illustration: SALMON-WATCHER’S TOWER ON THE RHINE.]

The root of the evil as regards the scarcity of salmon is to be found

in the avarice of the lessees of fisheries, who have overfished the

rivers to an alarming extent. The increased value of all kinds of fish

food during late years has engendered in these parties a greed of money

that leads to the capture and sale of almost everything that bears the

shape of fish. The tenant of a salmon-fishery has but one desire, and

that is to clear his rent and get as much profit as he can. To achieve

this end he takes all the fish that come to his net, no matter of what

size they may be. It is not his interest to let a single one escape,

because if he did so his neighbour above or below him on the water

would in all probability capture it. As a general rule, the tenant has

no care for future years; he has no personal interest in stocking the

upper waters with breeding fish. He is forced by the competition of

his rivals to do all he can in the way of slaughter; and were there

not a legal pause of so many hours in the course of the week, and a

close-time of so many days in the year, it is questionable if a score

of fish would make their way past the engines devoted to their capture.

A watcher can stand on the bridge of Perth, and at certain seasons can

signal or count every fish that passes in the water below him, and

every fish passing can be caught by those on the look-out; and I have

seen the same watch kept on the Rhine,[6] and on other salmon rivers.

The accompanying sketch of a salmon-watcher’s tower on the great

German river may interest some of my readers who have never been on

that beautiful water.

This unhealthy competition will always continue till some new system

be adopted, such as converting each river into a joint-stock property,

when the united interests of the proprietors, both upper and lower,

would be considered. The trade in fresh salmon, which has culminated

in some rivers by the total extermination of the fish, dates from the

time of Mr. Dempster’s discovery of packing in ice. Half-a-century ago,

when we had no railways, and when even _fast_ coaches were too slow for

the transmission of sea-produce, the markets were exceedingly local.

Then salmon was so very cheap as to be thought of no value as food, and

was only looked upon by the population with an eye of good-humoured

toleration—nobody ever expected to hear of it as a luxury at five

shillings a pound weight. No Parisian market existed then for foul

fish, and fifty years ago people only poached for amusement. But in

the excessive poaching which now goes on during close-time we have a

minor cause nearly as productive of evil as the primary and legal one;

for of course it is _legal_ for the tacksman of the station to kill

all the fish he can. Add to these causes the extraordinary quantities

of infant fish which are annually killed, coupled with that phase of

insanity which leads to the capture of grilse (salmon that have never

spawned), and we obtain a rough idea of the progress of destruction as

it goes on in our salmon rivers. Fifty or sixty years ago men caught

a salmon or shot a pheasant for mere sport, or at most for the supply

of an individual want. Now poaching is a trade or business entered

into as a means of securing a weekly or annual income; it has its

complex machinery—its nets, guns, and other implements. There are men

who earn large wages at this illicit work, who take to “the birds” in

autumn and the fish in winter with the utmost regularity; and there are

middlemen and others who encourage them and aid them in disposing of

the stolen goods. A few men will band themselves together, and in the

course of a night or two sweep fish from off the spawning-beds which

are totally unfit for human food. There is a ready market always to be

found even for spawning fish. Few of my readers can have any idea of

the immense number of salmon which are destroyed by this cause, and

at the very time when they are at their greatest value, intent on the

propagation of their kind. Indeed, on the very spawning-bed itself,

the “deadly leister” is hurled with unerring aim and mighty force; and

the slain fish, safely hidden in the poacher’s bag, is carried off to

be kippered and sold for the English market. A party will start at

nightfall, and, dividing into two companies, sweep the Tweed with a net

from shore to shore, and capture everything of the salmon kind that

comes within reach. The takes upon such occasions average from ten to

forty fish. The first night upon which my informant—a weaver—went out,

the result was seventeen large fish, three of which weighed ninety

pounds. Upon the second occasion the take was much larger, thirty-eight

salmon of a smaller size being the reward of their iniquity, weighing

in the aggregate four hundred and forty pounds, and producing in cash

£8 sterling, divided among eleven people. These stolen fish pass

through numerous hands. A person comes at a given time and takes away

the spoil; all that the actual poacher obtains as his share is a few

pence per pound weight. They are bought from the thieves by middlemen,

who again dispose of them to certain salesmen—each party, of course,

obtaining a profit.

In former times, as at present, there were more ways of killing a

salmon than by angling for it. Parties used to be made up for the

purpose of “burning the water,” a practice which prevailed largely

on the Tweed, and which afforded good rough sport. The burning took

place a little after sunset, when an old boat was commissioned for

the purpose, and flaming torches of pinewood were lighted to lure the

fish to their destruction. The leister, a sharp iron fork, was used on

these occasions with deadly power; rude mirth and song were usually the

order of the night; and the practice being illegal was not without a

spice of danger, or at least a chance of a ducking. Burning the water,

it must, however, be confessed, was more a picturesque way of poaching

than a means of adding legitimately to the produce of the fisheries as

a branch of commerce. It would have been well for the salmon-fisheries

had the arts of poaching never extended beyond the rude practice here

alluded to; but now poaching, as I have endeavoured to show, has become

a business, and countless thousands of the fish are swept off the

breeding-beds and sold to dealers. There is on most rivers an organised

system of taking and disposing of the fish; France, till very lately,

affording the chief outlet for this kind of food—an outlet, however,

which a recent Act of Parliament has done much to close up. Legislation

on the salmon question has of late been greatly extended, some powerful

Acts of Parliament having been passed for the better regulation of the

various British salmon-fisheries.[7]

It is recorded that at one time great hauls of salmon could be taken

either in the rivers of Scotland or Ireland, and that in England

salmon were also quite plentiful. One miraculous draught is mentioned

as having been taken out of the river Thurso, on which occasion the

enormous number of two thousand five hundred fish were captured. We

shall never again see such a haul, unless we give the rivers a rest for

a space of five years or so. A jubilee would greatly help to restore

the _status quo_. The discovery of packing in ice by Mr. Dempster led,

as was to be expected, to so large a trade in fresh salmon between

Scotland and England, that it at once effected a great rise in the

price of the fish. High prices had their usual consequence with the

producer. Every device was put in requisition to catch fish for London

and the Continent; and if this was the case at the beginning, it will

be readily understood how rapidly the fish-trade rose in importance

as new modes of transit became common. The demand and supply at once

assumed such enormous proportions as to tell with fatal effect on the

fisheries; and the high prices led at the same time to such extensive

and organised poaching as I have attempted to describe, and which,

notwithstanding much police organisation, still exists.

At one time there were famous salmon in the Thames, and hopes are

entertained of fish being successfully cultivated in that river. It

is certain that much deleterious matter has been allowed to get into

that stream and also into that famous salmon river the Severn; and in

the rivers of Cornwall I believe the hope of ever breeding salmon has

been entirely given up in consequence of the poisonous matters which

flow from the mines. Many rivers which were known to contain salmon in

abundance in the golden age of the fisheries are now tenantless from

matter by which they are polluted, such as the refuse of gasworks,

paper-mills, etc.

Another fertile source of harm to the salmon-fisheries are the fixed

engines of capture which so many people think it right to use, and

which the Lord Advocate’s Salmon Bill of 1862 left almost _in statu

quo_, except that a little power on this part of the salmon question

is given to the commissioners appointed to carry out the Act. Stake and

bag nets in Scotland are known to have been very destructive, as have

the putchers, butts, and trumpets of the English and Welsh rivers. It

would be tedious to describe the different fixed engines invented for

the capture of salmon; what I desire to show is that they have injured

the fisheries. A controversy has been raging in Scotland for some years

back on this point of the salmon question, which, there can be no

doubt, will ultimately result in their _entire_ extinction. That they

have been a most fruitful cause of injury to the fisheries has been

proved by a long array of facts and figures. A striking example of the

effect of bag-nets occurred with regard to the Tay. The system having

been extended to that river, the productiveness of the upper portions

of the stream was very speedily affected; and again, shortly after

their removal, the fisheries became greatly more productive, as will

be seen by and by when it becomes necessary to deal with the figures

denoting the rental of that river.

Although I have already referred to it, it is most important to note

here much more particularly the fact that, with probably the solitary

exception of the Tweed (and there the deterioration has only recently

been arrested), the size and weight of salmon are annually diminishing,

and, as some fishermen think, their condition and flavour also. There

can be no doubt that in the golden age of the fisheries they attained

much larger proportions than they do now. I need scarcely quote in

support of this opinion the fish mentioned by Yarrell, which was

exhibited by Mr. Groves, and weighed eighty-three pounds; nor that

alluded to by Pennant, which was only ten pounds lighter; nor the fact

that in all virgin salmon-rivers the fish average a greater weight

than any now taken in the British streams. It is within the memory

of anglers that fish of forty pounds were by no means rare in the

Scottish rivers; that salmon of thirty pounds and thirty-five pounds

weight were quite common; and that the general run of fish were in

the aggregate many pounds heavier than those of the present day. Mr.

Anderson, the lessee of some of the best salmon-fisheries on the Firth

of Forth, a gentleman who is master of his business, is of opinion that

the average weight of fish now is reduced to about sixteen pounds;

and by the Tweed Tables, the average weight of those killed by the

net between July and September, though apparently on the increase, in

no month rises to fifteen pounds. How is it, then, that we have no

giants of the river in these days? The answer, I think, is simple and

convincing. Let us suppose, for example, that the fish grows at the

rate of five pounds per annum: it would, therefore, take ten years to

achieve a growth of fifty pounds. Now it is needless to say that, in

British waters at any rate, we never either see or hear of a fish of

that weight. The fact is, we do not give our salmon time to grow to

that size. The greater portion of the fish that we kill are two years

old, or at the most three—fish running from eight pounds to sixteen

pounds in weight. It is clear that, if we go on for a year or two

longer at the rate of slaughter we have been indulging of late years,

there will speedily not be even a three-year-old fish to pull out of

the water. It is very suggestive of the state of the salmon-fisheries

that we have now eaten down to our three-year-olds.

Another fertile source of destruction is the killing of grilse;

the grilse being a virgin fish, its slaughter is just analogous

to the killing of lambs without due regulation as to quantity. In

this respect, “the conduct of salmon proprietors is as rational

as high-farming with the help of tile-drains, liquid-manure, and

steam-power, would be for the purpose of eating corn in the blade.”

As many as 100,000 grilses have been taken from one river in a year—a

notable example of killing the goose for the golden egg. If we had an

Act of Parliament to prevent the capture of grilse, we should never

want salmon. The parr and smolt are protected. Why? Because they are

the young of the salmon. Well, so is grilse the young of the salmon,

and grilse also are sadly in want of protection.

[Illustration: STAKE-NETS ON THE RIVER SOLWAY.]

Recent debates in the House of Commons on the English and Scottish

Salmon Fisheries Bills brought out very distinctly the worst phase of

the salmon question—viz. the prevalence of stake and bag nets. These

machines have exercised a baneful influence on the fisheries, and

have in numerous instances intercepted about one-half of the salmon

of particular rivers, before they could reach their own waters. These

nets are erected in the tideways, not far from the shore, and as the

fish are coasting along towards their own particular spawning-ground,

they are intercepted either in the chambers of the bag-net, or in

the meshes of the stake-net. It is said, too, that fish taken in the

tidal estuaries are in far finer condition than those caught in

the fresh-water division of the large salmon rivers; hence they are

in greater demand, and bring a slightly better price. There is no

consideration among tacksmen of river fishings, or proprietors of bag

or stake nets, for the preservation of the fish; it seems to be a rule

with these gentlemen to kill all they can. It is obvious that, if the

upper proprietors of the waters were to act in the same spirit, and

kill all the salmon that reached the breeding-grounds, that fine fish,

not unaptly called the “venison of the waters,” would very speedily

become extinct.

As may be known to most of my readers, the chief British salmon

streams, so far at least as productiveness is concerned, are the Tay,

the Tweed, the Spey, and the Esk. I have not space in which to sketch

the whole of these rivers, but I desire, on behalf of English readers

particularly, to say a few words about two of our Scottish salmon

streams; and I select the Tay and the Spey.

The Tay is equal to a basin of 2250 square miles, and it discharges,

after a run of about 150 miles, a greater volume of water than any

other Scottish river. “As ascertained by Dr. Anderson, the quantity

which is carried forward per second opposite the city of Perth averages

no less than 3640 cubic feet.” The main river and its affluents, and

_their_ varied tributaries, afford splendid breeding-ground for the

salmon. As an instance we may take the Earn. It flows from Loch Earn

in the far west of Perthshire, and is, when it leaves the lake, a

considerable river, and over the greater part of its course its current

is very rapid. A slight drawback to its capabilities as a fish-breeding

river is the fact of its sometimes overflowing its banks; but its

tributaries afford plenty of excellent ground for salmon-breeding.

Indeed, on all the tributaries of the Tay there is ample accommodation

for the fish. I have in my mind’s eye some excellent salmon-beds

near Airlie Castle, on the Isla. The banks of the river are overhung

by foliage, and the salmon sport industriously in the deep pools,

resorting to the gravel at the proper season in order to dig beds in

which to deposit their eggs, and when in due time these are vivified

and grow from the fry to the parr state, I have seen the youthful

“natives” catching them in scores.

The Tay deserves special honour, for it must rank as the king of

Scottish rivers, receiving as it does the tribute of so many streams,

and running its course through such a variety of fine scenery. Loch

Tay is generally accounted the source of this river, but if it be

considered that the loch is chiefly fed by the river Dochart, the

source of this latter river is actually the fountain-head of the

Tay. The Dochart rises in the extreme west of Perthshire, and, after

striking the base of the “mighty Ben More” and the Dochart Hills, falls

into Loch Tay at the village of Killin, before reaching which place it

assumes the dimensions of a considerable river. There is fine angling

to be had in the vicinity of Killin; indeed, the salmon rod-fisheries

there are of some value, and trout can be taken in great plenty both

in the Dochart and the Lochay. Loch Tay contains abundance of fish,

and, as that sheet of water is of considerable size, there is ample

room to ply the angle, either for salmon, trout, or charr. The loch is

about sixteen miles in length, and is overshadowed on the north by Ben

Lawers—one of the loftiest of our Scottish mountains. The river Tay

issues from the loch within a mile of Taymouth Castle, one of the fine

seats of the noble family of Breadalbane; and, after flowing eastward

for a few miles, its waters are augmented by those of the Lyon, whose

source is about twenty-six miles distant from its junction with the

Tay. Passing over several minor streams and proceeding eastwards,

the next important tributary of the Tay is the Tummel, the junction

taking place at the ancient and once famous burgh of Logierait. This

river, which is the largest tributary of the Tay, is the outlet of

Loch Rannoch, situated in the extreme north-west of Perthshire. The

loch is well stocked with trout, and large specimens of the _Salmo

ferox_ are frequently caught; but the true salmon (_Salmo salar_) is

not found either in Loch Rannoch or Loch Tummel, their ascent being

checked by the Falls of Tummel. Below the falls, however, there are

several salmon-fisheries, but they are not very productive. The Tay,

after receiving the waters of the Tummel and Garry at Logierait, flows

onward through beautiful scenery till it reaches Dunkeld, where it

receives the tributary stream of the Braan, which has for its source

a small sheet of water named Loch Freuchie, situated in Glen Quoich.

The scenery around the junction of the Braan and Tay is hallowed by

numberless associations of bygone times. Passing beneath the noble

arches of Dunkeld Bridge, the Tay flows eastward till it is joined by

the Isla, when it again takes a southerly direction until it reaches

Perth. On its way thither it receives the tribute of the Almond, the

Shochie, and the Ordie. The Isla is a large and important stream,

draining as it does a considerable extent of country, and lending its

aid both to miller and manufacturer. The Almond is the next river in

importance, but a tradition connected with it is better known than the

river itself. On Lynedoch Braes, which are near the foot of the stream,

dwelt the heroines of the poetic legend of Bessie Bell and Mary Gray,

in the house which they “biggit” with their own hands, and “theekit

ower wi’ rashes.” The Shochie and Ordie cannot claim the name of

rivers, but they are celebrated as being named in a prophecy attributed

to Thomas the Rhymer:—

“Says the Shochie to the Ordie

Where shall we meet?

At the cross of Perth,

When a’ men are asleep.”

The Isla, Almond, and the two rivers last named, in common with all

the tributaries of the Tay, afford excellent sport to the angler.

The country bordering the banks of this portion of the Tay is a

mixture of pastoral and agricultural. Rippling past the Stormontfield

breeding-ponds, now a feature of the river, and the palace of Scone,

the Tay speedily reaches the links of Perth’s fair city; and after

being joined by the Earn, also an excellent salmon stream, it widens

into a broad estuary, and, speedily sweeping past the manufacturing

town of Dundee, is lost in the German Ocean.

[Illustration: SALMON-FISHING STATION AT WOODHAVEN ON TAY.]

A few local inquiries as to angling on the Tay will elicit more

valuable information than I can give here. At some places on the lower

portion of the water the aid of a boat (a Tay boat) is necessary, as

the best pools are otherwise inaccessible to the angler. The cost of a

boat and man ranges, I think, from three to six shillings, and on the

smooth parts of the river one man is generally enough for attendance.

Some parts of the Tay are quite free to all comers, especially about

Kinfauns; and, if I mistake not, up all the way from Perth to the

breeding-ponds at Stormontfield. Perth forms a capital centre for the

angler: it is a good place in which to obtain information or tackle,

and it is easy to get away from the “Fair City” to places and streams

of note. And if the angler wants to “harl” the Tay itself, Perth is the

very best place to obtain instructions in the art of “harling,” which

is very attractive. The commercial fishings may be seen in operation

at and below Perth: they are carried on by means of the net and coble.

A boat sails out with the net, and taking in a sweep of the water

returns, in its progress enclosing any of the salmon kind that may be

in that part of the river. The operation is usually repeated several

times each day at every fishing station.

The Tay salmon-fisheries are owned by various noblemen, gentlemen, and

corporations; and they yield a gross annual rent of nearly £17,000. To

give an idea of the individual value and the occasional fluctuations of

even the best fisheries, we may cite some of the figures connected with

the rental of the river Tay. Lord Gray, for instance, has drawn from

his fisheries more than £100,000 during the last thirty-five years.

The salmon and grilse obtained for this sum run from 10,000 to 28,000

a year. It has been frequently asserted that our salmon-fisheries are

a lottery, and in confirmation of this it may be stated that in 1831,

when 10,000 fish were taken, the rental of this fishery was £4000; and

that in 1842, when the capture was 28,453 fish, the rental was £1000

less. Dividing the income for the two years, we have the following

result:—Averaging the fish at 5s. each gives as a loss to the tenant on

the 10,000 year of £1500, while on the other year there is the large

profit of £4000! But the value of the Tay fisheries will be better

estimated by mentioning that in some seasons the number of fish taken

from the mouth of the Isla down to the sea has ranged from 70,000

to upwards of 100,000. Ten of the fishing-stations between Perth and

Newburgh used to produce an annual rental of about (on the average)

£700 each.

As to the much-discussed stake-net question, the following figures may

be quoted:—About the end of last century, _before_ the existence of

stake-nets, the average number of fish taken at the Kinfauns fishery

was—salmon, 8720; grilse, 1714. In the first ten years of the present

century, the average annual catch of salmon fell to 4666, and the

grilse numbered 1616. _After_ the stake-nets were removed, and in

the ten years from 1815 to 1824, the average number of salmon caught

was 9010 per annum, and of grilse 8709. I have purposely avoided

filling up my space with an accumulation of proof on this point,

but were further proof required of the deadly influence of stake

and bag nets on the salmon rivers, it could easily be had; indeed,

ample testimony has, from time to time, been recorded in Parliament,

both against the stake-nets, and that “chamber of horrors” for the

salmon, the deadly bag. A stream like the Tay ought to have a stock

of breeding-fish sufficient to produce more than 100,000,000 of eggs,

because the destruction of the spawn and the young fish is so enormous

as to require provision for a large amount of waste; hence the value

of artificial cultivation. By the natural system of spawning it is

supposed that only one egg in each thousand comes to the fisherman’s

net as a twenty-five pound fish.

The river Spey is an excellent salmon-producing stream; in fact, size

considered, it is the richest in Scotland, the fishings at Speymouth

being worth £12,000 per annum. The Spey is about a hundred and twenty

miles on its course before it falls into the sea, and some parts of the

river are very picturesque.

“Dipple, Dundurcus, Dandaleith, and Dalvey

Are the bonniest haughs on the run of the Spey.”

The stream is very rapid, having in its course a fall of twelve hundred

feet; it rushes on in one continuous gallop from its mountain well to

the sea, giving rise to the local proverb of there being “no standing

water in Spey,” although there are pools thirty feet deep. Still, as

a rule, the river is shallow, having generally a depth of about three

feet; and there are places which, when the water is a little low, may

be crossed by a man on foot.

I have seen the rafts of wood coming down from the hills at the rate

of ten miles an hour; and the Spey is not only the most rapid, but

also the wildest of all our large Scottish rivers. “The cause of

this is easily explained. The river drains thirteen hundred miles of

mountains, many of whose bases are more than a thousand feet above the

level of the sea. The Dulnain, draining the southern part of the Monagh

Lea Mountains, runs more than forty miles before entering Spey; and

the Avon, with a course as long, brings down the waters of Glenavon,

which lies between the most majestic mountains in Britain. Besides

these great tributaries, the Spey has the Truim, the Tromie, the

Feshie, the Fiddoch, and other affluents, swelling her volume with the

rapidly-descending waters of a mountainous country.” The river Spey is

an example of a well-managed stream, and in the late Duke of Richmond’s

time produced a very handsome revenue. It was well managed, because

the duke fished it himself; and, of course, it was his interest to

have it well protected, and to keep a handsome stock of breeding fish.

For instance, in the years 1858 and 1859 the duke drew on the Spey for

upwards of 107,000 salmon and grilse, and the fish in that river are as

plentiful as ever. On the Spey, however, there is no confusion of upper

and lower proprietors to fight against and take umbrage at each other,

the river belonging mostly to one proprietor. Other Scottish rivers

also yield, or did at one time yield, large annual sums in the shape of

rental; and on the larger salmon rivers of Scotland the income derived

by many of the “lairds” from the salmon forms a very welcome addition

to their land revenues. Mr. Johnstone, the lessee of the Esk fisheries

at Montrose, stated at a public meeting held some time ago in Edinburgh

to protest against the removal of stake-nets, that he estimated the

Duke of Sutherland’s fisheries at £6000 a year, and quoted his own

rents as £4000 per annum, giving him the privilege to fish on two

different rivers, on one of which he had eight miles of water, on the

other six. The rents of the sea salmon-fisheries of Scotland (stake

and bag nets), which the recent bill of the Lord Advocate proposed to

abolish, range from £20 to £1000 per annum. Princely rentals have been

drawn from the salmon rivers of that division of the United Kingdom.

The Tweed alone at one period gave to its proprietors an annual income

of £20,000; but although the price of fish has greatly increased of

late years, the rental fell at one time to about a fifth part of that

sum, and the take of fish sank from 40,000 to 4000. Persons interested

in the salmon have been watching very keenly during late years the

effects of the legislation of 1857 and 1859 upon the Tweed fisheries,

the rent of that river being now little more than a third of what it

once was. The principal changes introduced by the two Tweed Acts of

1857 and 1859 may be shortly stated to be:—

1. The entire abolition of bag, stake, and other fixed nets of every

description in the river, and the restriction and regulation of

stake-nets on the sea-coast, and no net except the common sweep-net,

rowed out and immediately drawn in again, has been allowed on the

Tweed since 1857. 2. The entire prohibition of leistering. 3. A slight

increase of the weekly close-time, and an increase of the annual

close-time for nets by four weeks. 4. The permission of rod-fishing for

an extended period, so as to interest proprietors to a greater degree

in the protection of the river. And last, not least, the absolute

prohibition of killing unclean or unseasonable fish at any time of the

year, and an enactment that all such fish caught during the fishing

season should be returned to the water.

Much curiosity has existed as to the results achieved by the Tweed

Acts, the first really stringent code enforced on any British river;

and although statistics in such matters, unless taken over very

extended periods, are not to be too implicitly relied on, and much

allowance must be made for the variations caused by weather and

unfavourable seasons during so short a period as has elapsed, yet it

is well worth while to ascertain what can be learned concerning this

experiment. With this view I have consulted the very valuable and

interesting series of tables which have been compiled and printed for

private circulation by Alexander Robertson, Esq., one of the Tweed

Commissioners, and a director of the Berwick Shipping Company. A brief

reference to the figures in these tables shows at once whether or not

there has been an improvement in the fishing. The total capture of

salmon, grilse, and trout, in Tweed for the six years preceding 1857

was 50,209 salmon, 153,515 grilse, and 294,418 trout; making a yearly

average of 8368 salmon, 25,586 grilse, and 49,069 trout. In the six

years succeeding the Act—viz. 1858 to 1863—the total capture was 60,726

salmon, 124,182 grilse, and 175,538 trout; being an average of 10,121

salmon, 20,697 grilse, and 29,256 trout. These are improving figures,

taking into account that the fishing season had been curtailed by a

period of four weeks. The total rent of the river in 1857 was about

£5000; it is now above £7500, and is on the rise.

The English salmon-fisheries, generally speaking, have been allowed to

fall into so low a state that I fear it will be impossible to recruit

them in a moderate period of time without foreign aid. Some of the

rivers, indeed, are as nearly as possible salmonless. It is difficult

to select an English river that will in all respects compare with the

Tay, but the Severn produces the finest salmon of any of the English

salmon rivers; and it is a noble stream, containing many kinds of fish,

which afford great sport to the angler. If the river flowed in a direct

course from its source to the sea, it would be eighty miles in length;

as it is, by various windings, it flows for two hundred miles. It has

many fine affluents, and in its course passes through some beautiful

scenery. It rises in Wales, high up the eastern side of Plinlimmon,

at a place in the moors called Maes Hafren, which gave at one time

its title to the river, Hafren being its ancient name. After flowing

through several counties it falls into the sea at Bristol Channel.

Had the fisheries of the Severn been as free from obstacles and as

well preserved as those on the river Tay, they would still have been

of immense value, as it possesses some very fine breeding-grounds.

The Severn could be speedily restored to its primary condition as

one of our finest salmon streams; that is, if the various interests

could be consolidated, and artificial breeding be extensively carried

on for a few years. The Severn still possesses a tolerable stock of

breeding-fish, which might be turned to good account in a way similar

to those at Stormontfield on the Tay.

Mr. Tod Stoddart, who is an authority on the salmon question, and

particularly on matters relating to angling, says that a river like

the Tay or the Tweed requires 15,000 pairs of breeding-fish to keep it

in stock, the average weight of the breeders to be ten pounds each.

Proceeding on these data, and taking the period of growth of the fish

as previously stated, it may be interesting if we inquire how soon a

fine river like the Severn could be made a property. Allowing that

there is at present a considerable stock of breeding fish in that

river—say 10,000 pairs—and that for a period of two years these should

be allowed a jubilee, the river during that time to be carefully

watched; that plan alone would soon work a favourable change; but

if supplemented by an extensive resort to artificial nurture and

protection, in the course of three years the Severn would be, speaking

roundly, a mine of fish wealth. A series of ponds capable of breeding

1,000,000 fish might, I think, be constructed for a sum of £2000; there

ought of course to be two reception-ponds, so that a brood could be

hatched annually. [See plan in “Fish Culture.”] Thus, in a year’s time,

half a million of well-grown smolts would be thrown into the river from

the ponds alone, a moiety of which in the course of ten weeks would be

saleable grilse! Next year these would be doubled, and added to the

quantity naturally bred would soon stock even a larger river than the

Severn. There can be no doubt of the practicability of such a scheme.

What has been achieved in Ireland and at Stormontfield can surely be

accomplished in England. An ample return would be obtained for the

capital sunk, and in all probability a large profit besides.

A recent report of the Inspectors of the English Fisheries embraces a

summary of the condition of ninety rivers; and I can gather from it

that considerable progress has already been made in arresting the decay

of these valuable properties, and that there is every prospect of the

best rivers being speedily repeopled with salmon to an extent that

will secure them, under proper regulations, from again falling into

so low a condition. A careful perusal of this report shows that fixed

nets have been nearly abolished; that portions of rivers not hitherto

accessible to fish have been made so, passes and gaps having been

created by hundreds. Poachers have been caught and punished with great

success; and, according to a review of the report in the _Field_, a

journal which is well versed in fishery matters, “salmon have been seen

in large quantities in places where they have not been seen these forty

years.”

In reference to the Act for the regulation of the salmon-fisheries

of England and Wales of 1861, and its supplement of 1865, a good

deal can be said as to the increase of salmon, but it is perhaps

best that Mr. Ffennell, one of the Commissioners, should be allowed

to say it for himself. The increase in the productiveness of the

English rivers then—and this is stated in the fourth annual report of

the inspectors—“far exceeds the anticipations of those who were most

sanguine in regard to the good results which might have been expected

from the operation of the Act of 1861; and the zeal of many who from

the first took an active part in administering the law has been greatly

stimulated by the telling effects of their exertion; while others,

who may have hesitated in the commencement from doubts of success,

have been led on by the force of good example, as well as by the more

powerful incentive arising from the many proofs so soon forthcoming

that salmon can be abundantly produced in the rivers of England.”

As to the amendment or rider to the Act of 1861, which was passed in

the present session (1865), its chief objects are to provide funds

for the payment of the wages of water-bailiffs, and of other expenses

connected with the due protection of the English salmon-fisheries,

and for the appointment of a body of able and responsible persons

to whom the duties of raising and expending such fund are to be

entrusted. The first of these is attained by the annual licensing

of rods, nets, and other engines used in the capture of salmon, at

fixed sums, the proceeds of which licence-duties are to be expended

(after the formation of a river or rivers into a fishery district by

order of the Secretary of State) on the protection of the fisheries

within that district only where such licence-duties are raised, and

in that district only are the licences available for use; and the

second, where a fishery district lies wholly in one county, by the

magistrates of that county in quarter-sessions at once appointing a

board of conservators for the district; but where a fishery district

lies in several counties, such appointment will be made by committees

of the various courts of quarter-sessions interested, under prescribed

arrangements. In either case after the appointment, the board of

conservators will be a body corporate, and have the entire control of

the salmon-fisheries within their district. The Act also provides for

the issuing of a special commission to inquire into the titles and

rights of all “fixed engines” used in the capture of salmon throughout

England and Wales. These devices have since the late improvement

in our fisheries very much increased in number; but now such only

may hereafter be employed as are proved to the satisfaction of the

Commissioners to have been lawfully used in either of the years 1857,

1858, 1859, 1860, or 1861. There are also other useful and necessary

provisions in the Act, affording protection to trout in the months of

November, December, and January, when they spawn, fixing a minimum

penalty for a second offence; requiring all salmon intended to be

exported between the 3d September and 2d February to be entered with

the proper officer of customs; and in other minor but important

particulars amending the Act of 1861, with which the Act of 1865 is

to be understood as incorporated. The associations on the Severn,

the Usk, and the Yorkshire rivers have already taken up the Act, and

intend applying, through the court of quarter-sessions at their next

October sessions, for the formation of fishery districts, and the

appointment of boards of conservators. It is anticipated that in the

lower part of the Severn £600, on the Wye £400, and on the Usk £300,

will be then derived from licences, and from the first year’s revenue

of these respective boards; and it is to be hoped that all necessary

preliminaries will be adjusted in time to permit the various boards of

conservators to enter upon their duties with the commencement of the

next open season.

As a guide to the productiveness in salmon of the different divisions

of the three kingdoms, the following table may be taken. It was

furnished by Messrs. Wm. Forbes Stuart and Co. of 104 Lower Thames

Street, London, and shows the quantity of salmon (_i.e._ the number of

boxes weighing one hundred and twelve pounds each) sent to London from

1850 to the end of the open fisheries of 1865:—

┌─────┬───────┬──────┬───────┬──────────────┬───────┐

│ │Scotch.│Irish.│Dutch. │ Norwegian. │ Welsh.│

├─────┼───────┼──────┼───────┼──────────────┼───────┤

│1850 │ 13,940│ 2,135│ 105 │ 54 │ 72 │

│1851 │ 11,593│ 4,141│ 203 │ 214 │ 40 │

│1852 │ 13,044│ 3,602│ 176 │ 306 │ 20 │

│1853 │ 19,485│ 5,052│ 401 │ 1208 │ 20 │

│1854 │ 23,194│ 6,333│ 345 │ None. │ 128 │

│1855 │ 18,197│ 4,101│ 227 │ None. │ 59 │

│1856 │ 15,438│ 6,568│ 68 │ 5 │ 200 │

│1857 │ 18,654│ 4,904│ 622 │ None. │ 220 │

│1858 │ 21,564│ 6,429│ 973 │ 19 │ 499 │

│1859 │ 15,630│ 4,855│ 922 │ None. │ 260 │

│1860 │ 15,870│ 3,803│ 849 │ 40 │ 438 │

│1861 │ 12,337│ 4,582│ 849 │ 60 │ 442 │

│1862 │ 22,796│ 7,841│ 568 │ 87 │ 454 │

│1863 │ 24,297│ 8,183│ 1,227 │ 180 │ 663 │

│1864 │ 22,603│ 8,344│ 1,204 │ 837 │ 752 │

│1865 │ 19,009│ 6,858│ 1,479 │ 1069 │ 868 │

├─────┼───────┼──────┼───────┼──────────────┼───────┤

│ │287,651│87,731│10,218 │ 4079 │ 5135 │

└─────┴───────┴──────┴───────┴──────────────┴───────┘

One of the least understood, although one of the most hotly-contested

parts of the salmon question, is the relation between the upper and

lower proprietors. A great salmon river may pass through the estates or

mark the property boundaries of a large number of gentlemen; and some

portions of this river are sure to be much more valuable than others.

As has been already stated, some of the proprietors on the river Tay

derive a large revenue from their fisheries; while others only obtain a

little angling, although they very likely furnish the breeding-ground

for a few thousands of the fish which aid in producing the large

rentals lower down. This part of the salmon question has been so well

argued by my friend Mr. Donald Bain, that I here reproduce a portion of

one of his letters on the subject:—

“Considering that at present the only chance of having fish in the

rivers depends upon the excellence and care of the breeding-grounds

at the river-heads, while the river-head proprietors, by disturbing

the shingle (which should be protected) at the period of depositing

and hatching the roe, could destroy all chance, and yet be legally

unchallengeable, these river-head proprietors are hardly recognised as

proprietors at all, which therefore should be altered.... I propose

that the river, from its highest breeding-ground to its mouth, and so

far into the sea as private or public interests can extend, should be

made a common property and a common care; improved where improvable, at

the general expense of the whole proprietors along its banks; fished,

not savagely, and as if extermination were a laudable object, but

prudently, and with a view to permanent interests; the fish allowed to

go unmolested to the breeding-grounds, at least so far as to secure a

full brood, and protected against destruction in returning when unfit

for food; and the expense and the profit to be divided _pro rata_,

according to the mileage along the banks; unless, in the judgment of

intelligent and equitable men, a degree of preference should be given

in the case of grounds of acknowledged excellence for breeding or

feeding.

“It may be said it would be malicious in the proprietors of

breeding-grounds to consider it necessary to repair their gravel-walks

with shingle from the river at the very time when depositing or

hatching the roe was going on; but could it be prevented?—and would it

be more inequitable than anticipating every fish worth catching at the

mouth of the river or along their course, and allowing the proprietors

of the head-waters no share?”

In the meantime, it is satisfactory to see that all classes of the

community are thoroughly aroused to the danger which menaces our king

of fishes. There must of course be a limit to the productiveness of

even the most prolific salmon river; and if this be overpassed and

the capital stock be broken upon, it is clear that a decrease will at

once begin, and that the production must annually become weaker, till

the fish are in course of time completely exterminated. Considering the

constant enormous waste of fish life, there ought at least, I think, to

be twice as many fish left in a river as are taken out of it. A care as

to this would in time have a good effect.

An evident anxiety to improve the salmon-fisheries is now apparent, and

the problem to be solved is how to restore the _status quo_, and obtain

a supply of salmon equal to the demand. There are but two ways to a

solution of the question. The experience of the Tweed, though still

imperfect, shows that the decay of that river has been arrested, and

that large salmon of some age—the best and surest breeders—now abound

in its waters, and that this result is in the main to be attributed to

improved legislation. The first thing therefore to be done is to extend

our legislation for all our salmon rivers in the same direction that

has been so successful on the Tweed; in other words, to eradicate, as

soon as may be, those dams, engines, and fixed nets still really left

untouched. The other, and as it seems to me the principal field for

improvement, is the adoption of artificial culture wherever it can be

carried out. Why should we not cultivate our water as we cultivate

our land? Few measures could be more effectual than some check on the

annual destruction of grilse; but, especially on the rivers in the

hands of many proprietors, such as the Tweed, it is not easy to say how

this can be practically effected; but might not artificial breeding

supply the deficiency caused by this slaughter of the innocents? By

means of pisciculture the French people have recreated their fisheries;

why should not we try what they have done? Let us by all means clean

our rivers by removing impurities of all kinds. Let us do our best to

prevent poaching; and, above all, let us take care not to encourage

legal “overfishing;” and, as gentlemen occasionally give their grouse

a year of jubilee, let me prescribe an occasional similar indulgence

to the salmon. Every little helps; and as we have now a considerable

knowledge of the natural history of the fish, we should avail ourselves

of it not only in our legislation, but also in the practical management

of the fisheries. If in our greed we still continue to overfish, after

the numerous warnings we have had, we must take the consequences in the

probable extermination of the salmon and its numerous congeners.