"But now every hill is scored with little rills which fall into the rivers, which suddenly become rapid torrents and swell the main river, which dashes down to the ocean with tumultuous violence. Amidst the great din you may hear the rattling of the channel stones as they are borne downwards. Banks are torn away; new deeps are hollowed out, and old ones filled up; so that great changes continually take place in the bed of the river either for the better or the worse. When we contemplate these things, we must at once acknowledge the vast importance of Mr Shaw's experiments; for if ponds were constructed upon the Tweed at the general expense, after the model of those made by him, all these evils would be avoided. The fry might be produced in any quantities by artificial impregnation, be preserved, and turned into the great river at the proper period of migration. There might at first be some difficulty in procuring food for them; but this would be easily got over at a very small expense, and with a few adult salmon more fry may be sent to sea annually than the whole produce of the river at present amounts to, after having encountered the sweeping perils I have mentioned."--P. 43. [Footnote 11: See _Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh_. Vol. XV. Part iii. p. 343.] Our author then proposes that proprietors should call meetings for the purpose, and that parr, hitherto so named, should now, in their capacity of young salmon, be protected by law. He advises all who have an interest in the river, to consider the wisdom of mutual accommodation; the owners of the more seaward banks being dependent on the upper heritors for the protection of the spawning fish and fry, while they, on the other hand, are equally dependent on the former for an honest adherence to the weekly close-time. But a thoughtful consideration of this portion of our subject would lead us into a somewhat interminable maze, including the policy of our ancient Acts of Parliament, and the nature of estuaries,--those mysteriously commingled "watteris quhar the sea ebbis and flowis,"--"ubi salmunculi vel smolti, seu fria alterius generis piscium maris vel aquæ dulcis, (nunquam) descendunt et ascendunt,"--and then the stake-net question stretches far before us, and dim visions of the "Sutors of Cromarty" rise upon our inward eye, and the wild moaning of the "Gizzin Brigs" salutes our ear, and defenders are converted into appellants, and suspenders into respondents, and the whole habitable earth assumes for a time the aspect of a Scotch Jury Court, which suddenly blazes into the House of Lords.[12]