NOTES ON BRITISH SALMONID/E 91 



which the laird of Dundonnel took most of his inspiration. 

 This surely cannot be held to reflect upon him ! It was here 

 that the estuary lines were fixed by the 1862 Commissioners, 

 mostly strangers to the locality, which, were it not sad, 

 would be, yea, are absolutely laughable on account of their 

 self-condemnatory silliness. One end of the line was set 

 upon a rock, which was isolated from the shore or joined to 

 the shore only at high and low spring tides ! As if that 

 were not rough enough upon Murdo Mackenzie's written 

 account, dating only two years earlier, the coast of the 

 whole bay of Gruinard has been staked and bag- netted 

 throughout its entire circumference; and, in 1884, I was 

 one of a party of anglers who pointed out to a later Salmon 

 Commissioner a net-fishing illegality within even that silly 

 limit. His duty was, as we were told, only to report ! We 

 did not return to fish this river after two disastrously bad 

 seasons, and I am not aware whether this illegal net was 

 ever stopped. Judging, however, from other experiences, I 

 fancy it was not likely to be ! Since then i.e. since 1884 

 the river has gone from bad to worse; indeed, since 1860, 

 when Mackenzie wrote, this has been going on. 



"Three Ross-shire Midges" wrote some account of the 



o 



state of things on this river in the volume of " The Field " of 

 that year (1884), if I remember it was in October and 

 November of the same year, 1884, which letter or article 

 had the approbation of the three lessees of the river-fishings, 

 both under the Dundonnel rights, and the single rod under 

 the rights of the late Mrs. Catton, and indeed was carefully 

 prepared under their supervision, and was read over to 

 Mr. A. Young, then Inspector of Salmon Fisheries for 

 Scotland. This article contained a revelation as regards 

 the very lenient treatment of the illegal working of the 

 nets in Gruinard Bay. Verily may the passages in the 

 preface to Mackenzie's tract be once more re-perused, 

 especially by those who now are engaged upon the New 

 Commission on our Salmon Fisheries ; and I hope it is 

 not too much to ask that the article referred to in " The 

 Field " be read also. 



Without quoting further, or saying any more on this 

 disagreeable series of facts, I will only now refer to one 



