84 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



rivers ; and, let me add, perhaps the Morrison river also. 

 But the entire habits of the large Tay salmon caught in 

 January, February, and March in Loch Tay seem to me 

 to be utterly different, and quite at variance with those of 

 the rivers which flow into Loch Ness. Mr. Grimble refers 

 to the action of the then Commissioners with regard to the 

 rivers of Loch Ness and its estuary : he regrets that many 

 other rivers of Scotland are not as liberally considered. 

 But I am departing too far from my own fields of observa- 

 tion, and will here add only one more remark, and that is : 

 it certainly seems to me, that if the late laird of these rivers 

 the late Mr. Ellice 1 did catch the ear of the Com- 

 missioners of the time, and thereby " feathered his own 

 nest" well, and granted that he did so, still, he at the 

 same time wittingly or unwittingly did more. He 

 did the best thing that has ever been done for the whole 

 healthy improvement of the entire system of the Ness basin, 

 as regards its salmon increase, by sea and shore and river. 



And now, to sum up for the present as to these objects 

 of our investigation : possibly it may be considered pre- 

 mature to attempt to arrive at conclusions such as the 

 following, but I give them, as at least the time seems to have 

 come when they may be discussed with some expectation of 

 an outcome in some direction, whether in the one I try to 

 point out, or in another. I put it, shortly, thus : If I find 

 a river which has no great reservoirs at its sources, and if it 

 is a river which offers sufficient inducements to fish to ascend ; 

 and if, notwithstanding these inducements, it is a late river, or 

 a river which only stocks up in the late season, then I would 

 be inclined to pronounce that it otiglit to be an earlier river, 

 and would be so if it were properly treated. I would un- 

 hesitatingly pronounce that it is over-fished by bag-nets at 

 the coast in spring, and had an insufficient estuary free of 

 nets ; that it was probably over-fished by other nets in the river 

 itself; and that cruives and obstructions aided in its destruc- 

 tion. Also that illegal " snatching " of fish by poachers 

 the watchers not withstanding them, but only looking on 

 in helplessness ! that poaching at the sources, and the 



1 I cannot help thinking that Mr. Ellice must have read, and studied, Murdo 

 Mackenzie's pamphlet of 1860. 



