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| SCENE ON RIVER ERNE, CO. DONEGAL. -The sketch shows a section of the river Erne, not far from where it enters the sea, brindled as it were, by weirs and sluice gates, which with other improvements more modern in character, serve to keep the upper and lower lakes at their summer level during the other seasons of the year. Enormous quantities of eels are caught at these weirs annually, and they with the salmon, consitute the main riches of the fine fisheries of the Erne system. Many British travellers, born epicures, prefer the Erne eels to their national whitebait. The Rev. Henry Newland, a devoted angler, writing of the piscatory capacity of the Erne between Belleck and the sea, says that the amount of fish contained in that short space is beyond computation. He enumerates among the species to be found there, in addition to the fish mentioned, trout, pike and perch, the latter, little valued. The eel and the salmon, he says, are sources of great profit. "Both equally affect the sea and fresh water, with this singular difference-the salmon enters the fresh water to spawn, the eel descends to the sea for the same purpose. The salmon returns annually-the eel never. The salmon are taken as they ascend, the eel as they descend. The salmon never moves by night, and the eel never moves by day." |
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