ner ought to be compelled to facilitate the
passage of the fish over his weir by every means consistent with
the proper supply of water to his wheels. At present the fisheries
at the mouths and lower parts of rivers so completely prevent the
access of the fish to the upper parts, that unless there happen to
be high floods, which prevent the fishermen below from keeping
their nets in, the upper proprietors comparatively seldom see any
until the season is at an end. The evidence before the House of
Commons on this point is exceedingly amusing. One person thinks
the upper proprietors have no right to expect any fish, as they
have never paid any consideration for them when they bought their
estates; another states that he pays L7,000 a year to the Duke of
Gordon, and that if he is compelled to observe a weekly (not a
daily) close time, he will lose that proportion of his rent;
another observes the weekly close time, and opens a passage for
the fish, but places a crocodile, painted in very glaring colours,
in the gap to frighten them back again; another says he observes
the weekly close time in his cruive fishing, but no one is allowed
to inspect the cruives; another sends men to break down the stake
nets in the estuary, which reach from high to low water-mark, and
at the same time stretches a net completely across the river from
March to August, so that a fish cannot pass without his
permission. No wonder that fish are scarce in the upper parts of
the river, when such samples of _disinterestedness_ are manifested
by the proprietors of the fisheries below. No wonder that the
upper proprietors should be careless about the protection of fish
from which they are not allowed to derive any benefit. No wonder
that they should connive at, and even encourage, the shameful
destruction of fish in close time, since that is the only time
they are allowed to have any. Let the fishermen below make it
worth the while of the upper proprietors to protect the fish, and
they will receive that protection; but it is too much to expect
from human nature that these proprietors will take all the odium
and trouble of preserving them when others reap all the benefit.
There ought to be conservators employed, to see that the fisheries
are properly regulated, and these should be paid by an assessment
on all the proprietors in proportion to the value of their
fisheries.

I should also recommend an extension and uniformity of close time
in all the rive