The Scottish Naturalist 341 



of the influence of the trout, which is after all only one factor 

 in the result, it is pretty evident that the salmon from other 

 causes is gradually disappearing from many of our rivers. 

 Pollutions, want of water, over-fishing, .and such like, may be 

 assisting in this ; but very likely there is some other and more 

 potent natural cause in operation, of the working of which we 

 perhaps know nothing further than the general result it is 

 bringing about. 



Be this as it may, it seems undoubted that salmon were much 

 more numerous in the last and previous centuries than in the 

 present. Nearly every traveller who visited Scotland then 

 commented on the great abundance of this fish, and one of these 

 states that in the Tay the quantity taken was prodigious. This 

 is still a capital salmon river, unlike the Tweed and some 

 others. The rents here have risen to about, I suppose, double 

 what they were some thirty years ago. The rise of rent is not, 

 of course, a very safe criterion as to the increase of salmon; the 

 former may be increasing, while the latter is stationary, or 

 decreasing. It would therefore be interesting to know how 

 much of the rise of rental in this river is to be ascribed to the 

 augmentation of produce, and how much to the rise in the price 

 of said produce. The late Mr. Headrick, Dunichen, stated 

 that the salmon fisheries about Broughty Ferry, or, on the space 

 where the tide ebbs, between that and Dundee, paid in 18 10 

 a rental of about ^"2,500. This author also stated that he 

 remembered when servants in the neighbourhood of Stirling 

 used to stipulate that they should not be obliged to eat salmon 

 more than thrice in the week. This is, of course, a common 

 tradition in many parts of Scotland, both as to servants and 

 apprentices. There was an estimate of the probable value of 

 the salmon fisheries of Scotland printed in Edinburgh in 1709. 

 This valuation is perhaps more curious than useful. As far as 

 I am aware, however, it is the first and the only likely attempt 

 made to arrive at an approximation of the value of the whole 

 fisheries of this country upwards of one hundred and sixty years 

 ago. Besides, it seems to be in accordance with the accounts 

 given by travellers and others who paid attention to the subject, 

 as well as with the general opinion of the day; and as a rough 

 embodiment of that opinion put in a tangible form, it is given 

 here for what it may be considered worth. The abstract of the 

 paper, as printed by Dr. Chambers, states : — " An anonymous 

 gentleman in Scotland, writing to the Earl of Seafield on the 



