33S The Scottish Naturalist. 



way above Cupar, and I believe they are occasionally taken 

 yet in this range. Sibbald states that there is a good salmon 

 fishing between Dairsie Bridge and the Guard Bridge. How- 

 ever this may have been in his time, it is certainly not 

 the case now, so far as the salmon proper is concerned. 

 The sea-trout (Salmo trutta) is to be met with in that por- 

 tion of the river, both in spring and autumn. In - the former 

 season, they seem chiefly to move up and down with the tide ; 

 in the latter, they are evidently bent on spawning purposes. 

 At Nydie Mill, where the proprietor holds a charter for net 

 fishing, in suitable years very good takes of sea-trout are some- 

 times got. This is apparently a fishery of considerable anti- 

 quity, and is doubtless the place referred to by Sibbald as a 

 good salmon fishing. Its proximity to the cathedral city of 

 St. Andrews was likely to enhance its value at an early period. 

 According to Buckland, the venerable inmates of these ecclesi- 

 astical establishments seem in ancient times to have been rather 

 partial to salmon. He endeavours to show that out of twenty- 

 seven cathedral towns in England, eighteen stand upon rivers 

 which, at the time when the towns were founded, produced 

 salmon. At the Nydie fishery there are the remains of an old 

 weir still to be seen extended across the river, to assist in catch- 

 ing the fish, similar (as it appears to me) to the one he notices 

 on the Wye, and said to be the work of the monks of Tintern 

 Abbey. 



In spring and autumn, especially the latter, good baskets of 

 sea-trout are caught by the rod in Eden, when the water is in 

 fair condition, and the net not in too close operation. In 

 autumn, in most cases, these trout have both the milt and 

 and roe in an advanced condition, and their object in ascending 

 the river at this season, whatever it may be in spring, is obvious 

 enough. Numbers of them spawn in the Eden every year. 

 The young are met with in different stages of development, 

 when they are called parr or yellow-fins, orange-fins, black-fins, 

 whitling, phinock, etc. The three latter names are after their 

 first return from the sea. Of course, some of these may belong 

 to some of the other migratory species. 



It is often stated that the bull-trout (Salmo eriox of 

 Yarrell, S. cambricus Giinther) has been not unfrequently 

 caught in the Eden. I have not, however, seen any trout 

 from that water that could be called with certainty an un- 

 doubted individual of that species. Although I have ex- 



