The recommendations of the Worcester committee deserved more consideration on the part of Government. They were suggested by men of great experience, and, moreover, unless they are adopted and legalized by Parliament there can be no permanent prosperity for Salmon rivers. Take the extension of close time as an instance. It cannot be right that the owners or lessees of estuary fisheries shall be allowed to take ninety per cent. of the fish which they have neither bred nor fed, and whose well-being and increase they have done nothing to promote; while the upper proprietors, on whom devolve all the care, trouble, and expense, are to rest satisfied with what the thirty-six hours per week can give them. What did they give the upper proprietors on the Ribble and the Hodder last season? Little or nothing. When the bill of 1861 was before the House of Commons, I had an opportunity of suggesting (indirectly) to the late Sir George Cornewall Lewis the propriety and desirableness of an extension of the weekly close time for the benefit of the upper proprietors. He replied, "You might as well propose to restrict the shooting of partridges to three days a week as to restrict the netting of Salmon." But with all due deference to so great an authority, there is no analogy between the two cases. If partridges had all to migrate and return before they could be legally shot, and had, like the Salmon, all to return by the same road, ninety per cent. of them before reaching the district where they were reared would become the prey of men who had neither bred nor fed them. I fancy sportsmen would want protection for them; and if they were not able to obtain it, they would do what is seriously proposed by many people with regard to the Salmon--they would do all they could to exterminate them, rather than continue to act as brood hens to hatch chickens for other men's eating. Then take the annual close time and the pretended compensation it offers in the two months' rod-fishing (September and October). After the nets have been withdrawn, what is it worth? Or, what is the value of black fish full of spawn? They cannot be sold; they are not fit to eat; the spawn has nearly arrived at maturity, and the only value the fish has is in the spawn, which is potted and sold in many instances by the poacher who kills the fish. He deserves no other name, whatever may be his rank or station.