This unhealthy competition will always continue till some new system be adopted, such as converting each river into a joint-stock property, when the united interests of the proprietors, both upper and lower, would be considered. The trade in fresh salmon, which has culminated in some rivers by the total extermination of the fish, dates from the time of Mr. Dempster’s discovery of packing in ice. Half-a-century ago, when we had no railways, and when even _fast_ coaches were too slow for the transmission of sea-produce, the markets were exceedingly local. Then salmon was so very cheap as to be thought of no value as food, and was only looked upon by the population with an eye of good-humoured toleration—nobody ever expected to hear of it as a luxury at five shillings a pound weight. No Parisian market existed then for foul fish, and fifty years ago people only poached for amusement. But in the excessive poaching which now goes on during close-time we have a minor cause nearly as productive of evil as the primary and legal one; for of course it is _legal_ for the tacksman of the station to kill all the fish he can. Add to these causes the extraordinary quantities of infant fish which are annually killed, coupled with that phase of insanity which leads to the capture of grilse (salmon that have never spawned), and we obtain a rough idea of the progress of destruction as it goes on in our salmon rivers. Fifty or sixty years ago men caught a salmon or shot a pheasant for mere sport, or at most for the supply of an individual want. Now poaching is a trade or business entered into as a means of securing a weekly or annual income; it has its complex machinery—its nets, guns, and other implements. There are men who earn large wages at this illicit work, who take to “the birds” in autumn and the fish in winter with the utmost regularity; and there are middlemen and others who encourage them and aid them in disposing of the stolen goods. A few men will band themselves together, and in the course of a night or two sweep fish from off the spawning-beds which are totally unfit for human food. There is a ready market always to be found even for spawning fish. Few of my readers can have any idea of the immense number of salmon which are destroyed by this cause, and at the very time when they are at their greatest value, intent on the propagation of their kind. Indeed, on the very spawning-bed itself, the “deadly leister” is hurled with unerring aim and mighty force; and the slain fish, safely hidden in the poacher’s bag, is carried off to be kippered and sold for the English market. A party will start at nightfall, and, dividing into two companies, sweep the Tweed with a net from shore to shore, and capture everything of the salmon kind that comes within reach. The takes upon such occasions average from ten to forty fish. The first night upon which my informant—a weaver—went out, the result was seventeen large fish, three of which weighed ninety pounds.