1853, when this great experiment was
commenced, so profoundly ignorant were we of the
habits and natural history of this valuable fish,
that not half a dozen people in the whole kingdom
could recognise a young salmon when they
saw it. This ignorance was rendered the more
amazing by the fact of their being under our
control and observation during the first two
years of their existence.

We have said that salmon has never, with
the exception of the Stormontfield experiments,
been protected or cultivated. It is true that
hundreds of acts of parliament have been passed,
ostensibly for its protection, but really and
truly for its destruction. They have all one
common origin in the quarrels and squabbles of
the various proprietors of the fisheries as to
who should catch the most fish. There are two
clauses invariably inserted in all these acts: one,
to the effect that you must not kill salmon while
they are laying their eggs; the other, that
you must not use a net the meshes of which
are less than two inches from knot to knot.
The first of these is but a negative good, and
the latter is a positive evil; no further protective
law has been made. From the time the
young fish rises from the egg, till it puts on its
migratory dress—a period extending from one
to two years—it is never so much as mentioned.

During the months of May and June, shoals
of little silvery fish were seen to descend our
rivers towards the sea; these were rightly
supposed to be salmon fry, and a few feeble
attempts were made to prevent boys from catching
them; but where these young fish came
from, neither our naturalists, nor the more
important "oldest fisherman on the river," had
the most remote idea; the general opinion was
that they had sprung from ova deposited in the
previous November. It was little dreamed that
these fish had for a couple of years, furnished
food for a hundred voracious animals, and afforded
sport for all the boys in the neighbourhood.

In order to arrive at an approximate
knowledge of the destruction of salmon fry, we had
better select some one particular river. The
Tay is perhaps the most suitable, it being not
only our best, but also, under the able management
of Mr. Buist, the best cared for of all our
salmon fisheries.

The number of salmon and grilse taken yearly
in this river, is, in round numbers, eighty
thousand, and the number that passes up for
breeding purposes during close time—that is,
the five months when no salmon can be legally
taken—is supposed to be forty thousand. Of
these forty thousand, one-half are females, and
the average weight of each fish is upwards of
ten pounds. It is known that a salmon deposits
a thousand eggs for every pound of its weight;
it follows that each of these twenty thousand
female fish will deposit ten thousand eggs;
and that 20,000 x 10,000 = 200,000,000, that
is, two hundred millions of eggs are deposited
annually in the bed of this one river! The
melancholy result of this prodigious number of
eggs, is eighty thousand fish, or about five
salmon or grilse from ten thousand eggs, the
produce of each pair of fish.

Is there no remedy for this extraordinary
state of things? We think there is; there are
two methods, both of which should be conducted
simultaneously. One by protecting the fry in
the river; and the other by artificial cultivation.

When a gamekeeper is placed on an estate
for the purpose of raising a large stock of game,
the first thing he does is to look for marks or
signs of vermin—he calls everything vermin
that isn't game—but polecats, stoats, weasels,
house-cats run wild, hawks, crows, and the like,
are his great aversion. He sets to work at once to
trap, shoot, and otherwise destroy them by every
means at command, for he well knows from
experience that an attempt to raise game on land
infested with vermin, would be as futile as an
attempt to raise sheep in a country overrun by
wolves. This trapping of vermin never ceases; it
is almost the whole and sole business of the
gamekeeper. Should he happen to find a bird killed
by vermin, he rests neither day nor night till he
has trapped the depredator. Hunting human
poachers is quite a secondary matter; what they
kill is a mere matter of moonshine compared to
the mischief done by vermin; the poacher kills
game only when fit for the table, but vermin is
never at rest night nor day from one year's end
to the other. One pair of stoats will do more
mischief than a dozen poachers, and three or four
house-cats ran wild will demolish the game on a
thousand acres. The careful gamekeeper also
collects all the outlying eggs—those deposited
in places where they are likely to be destroyed—
brings them home, hatches them, and protects
the young until they can take care of themselves.
We should have but a poor opinion of a
gamekeeper who did nothing but kill game during
seven months, and left the remnant a prey for
every kind of vermin during the remaining five.
And yet this is exactly the plan we follow with
regard to salmon.

If we are to materially increase our supply,
we must follow the plan of the gamekeeper, and
trap the vermin.

There is a clause inserted in every salmon act
to the effect that no net used in a salmon river
shall have a mesh less than eight inches in
circumference, or two inches from knot to knot;
whatever may be left out, this clause never is;
it must therefore be considered of great importance;
but what is the object of it? What
is it intended to do, or to leave undone? We
have made every possible inquiry, and cannot
get at the bottom of it, it is so very deep. It
cannot be for the purpose of allowing grilse, or
small salmon, to pass through, for it is quite
small enough to take every one of them; a fish
of two pounds weight might pass through, but
we never find salmon so small in our rivers.
The truth is, if a reward had been offered for
the best plan for destroying our salmon fisheries,
it would be impossible to have hit upon a more
effective contrivance than this two-inch mesh;
for the reason that it is small enough to catch