its mouth. This became known at the anglers' club, and it was
deemed so important to preserve them, that the club divided
themselves into three or four watches, and guarded the spawning
bed night and day, whilst the fish were spawning, and this
spawning lasted about a week.

Here in the Ribble the Salmon fisheries are not quite so near
extinction (though they are rapidly progressing in that
direction), for although we are very seldom allowed to see or
catch fish in seasonable condition, a good many come up the river
to spawn, though very few of them ever do so, and very few of
those that do ever reach the sea again. The reason is obvious, no
one here has any interest in preserving the spawning fish, and
they are openly killed by the poachers, who never dream of being
prosecuted for it. I am credibly informed that in a stream not
five hundred yards from where I write, sixty spawning fish were
killed last winter. Some years ago one gang of poachers killed
three hundred Salmon on the spawning beds in one season, and sold
potted Salmon roe (which is a most destructive bait for Trout) to
the value of L20.

In the Lune the proprietors of the fisheries near Lancaster sent
men to protect the spawning fish in the streams above; but these
men were warned off by the landed proprietors, who said, If you
catch all the good fish you must at least allow us to catch the
bad ones. In the Tweed and its tributaries it used to be quite as
bad (what the new Scotch law has done I do not know), but a
poacher who gave evidence before the Committee of the House of
Commons in 1825 said that he had assisted to take four hundred
Salmon at one haul in close time in the Tweed.