14 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



NOTES ON SALMONID^:. 

 By J. A. HARVIE-BROWN. 



THE RIVER INVER WEST COAST. 



I AM now selecting for illustration a history of the above- 

 named river. The rivers Inver and Kirkaig I have known 

 for many years intimately, from their sources to the sea. I 

 have known them since before the late Duke began his 

 restocking operations on the Inver, and I have fished one 

 of the two rivers at least the Inver since 1866, and the 

 other also for many years. 



As shortly as I can, I will give a sketch of the history 

 of these rivers down to the present time. 



Now, although the Royal Commissioners of 1862 

 " fixed for ever " the very contracted estuarial limits of 

 the rivers Inver and Kirkaig, and though they treated 

 their drainage areas as constituting two distinct districts, 

 fortunately wiser heads of the Estates Management, having 

 full rights, extended the estuarial line to include the two 

 rivers as one district, making the northern limit at Clach- 

 toll in Stoir, and drawing the line outside the island of 

 Soay, which lies off the entrance of Loch Inver, to a point 

 three miles to the south of the village of Inverkirkaig, which 

 is situate at the mouth of the river Kirkaig. Within this 

 line no nets are permitted. This gives a free estuary to 

 both rivers of the length of some six miles between the 

 points, and of two and a half miles from shore. Only in 

 very dry seasons of the summer runs of fish, do the shoals 

 get severely punished by the nets outside. These rivers, 

 therefore, have good chances of periodical recoveries. The 

 years 1887 and 1888, and again 1901, were great years of 

 extreme drought. 



The Inver has a course of some seven miles after flowing 

 out of Loch Assynt. Loch Assynt is seven miles long, 

 and receives at its extreme head the combined waters of 

 the Loanan River and those of the limestone burns of 

 Trailigil and Altnaoul, branches of which crystal streams 

 flow by underground passages from the Muloch Corrie, or 



