44 



KELSO . rpj^ r j ver should not be open till 15th March or 1st April. Trout angling- 



should cease at the end of September. Salmon angling should go on till 

 15th October because at present the nets get the main catch. Once in July 

 and August, pike were very plentiful in the Duke's water at St. BoswelPs, and 

 netting was allowed there. 



Owing to drainage there is often at the mill caulds a collection of fish. They 

 will only go down in bodies. In the middle of April 12 or 14 fish in a body 

 may be seen going down. They come up in pairs, and often in shoals. 



The fungus is not the disease. It might settle on a healthy fish and create 

 disease. Very small kippers may be attacked by large kippers, and they fight. 

 Cannot say if there is any difference between sores from wounds and sores on 

 diseased fish. 



There may be some virus in the beak of the kelts. 



The disease is confined to Ayrshire, to the Solway, and to the Tweed. 

 Cannot account for this. There is none in the Forth, which is very 

 polluted. The Lune and tributaries are polluted. 



Approves of the watchers burying dead fish. Since the prohibition of roe- 

 fishing roe is a drug in the market and it is used high up the river. One or 

 two watchers here have been watching boys catching trout with salmon roe, 

 while they might be better engaged taking out the dead fish. Many of them 

 are good men, but others do little good. 



From 15th March to 1st April kelts should be caught. Kelts don't go 

 down till the middle of April. They are often detained by the mill caulds. 



Suggests the removal of kelts and the burying of diseased fish. 



The manures for the land may affect fish. The river rapidly falls from 

 flood to a low state through drainage. Many such causes aggravate the disease. 

 \Puts in a letter received by him from Dr. Crosbie, late Surgeon to the Challenger 



Expedition. It is as follows .-] 



"16, Gillespie Crescent, 



"Dear Mr. Stoddart, Edinburgh, 21st Sept. 1879. 



" Ix answer to your note of date 17th September, I will now very con- 

 '* cisely tell you all that I know regarding the disease of salmon that has 

 " lately been brought so prominently under notice. It was in the spring of 1852 

 " that the opportunity was afforded me of investigating the disease. I then 

 " procured a salmon very nearly at the point of death ; having been struck 

 " with the peculiar appearance of ulceration which the fish presented in the 

 " water. There were large ulcers from the size of sixpence to that of a crown 

 " piece and larger, scattered over the entire surface. A large one had involved 

 " the opercula of one side and extensively destroyed them. Another had bur- 

 " rowed under and extensively undermined the large dorsal fin. Now all 

 " these ulcers, whether superficial or deep-seated, had a peculiar flocculent 

 " appearance, and suggested to me a fungoid origin at once. Accordingly I 

 " made careful sections of the ulcers in every condition and traced the fungoid 

 " growth in all its stages. I demonstrated the mycelium merely affecting the 

 " epidermis, then in the scales, next in the subcutaneous tissue, and in the 

 " debris of the muscle and bone, that had been destroyed by the growth in 

 " the deeper ulcers. I exposed the sections to solutions of various chemical 

 " substances, and I found that a solution of salt (I forget the proportion now) 

 " completely dissolved the fungus, and left the tissues absolutely free from it. 

 " It was clearly a fungoid ulcerative disease. I made inquiries among 

 " fishermen and others conversant with the river, and found it was a disease 

 * e fairly well known in the Tweed. Everyone I consulted agreed in opinion 

 " that the disease only occurred in the spring months when j,the river was and 

 " had been for some considerable time below the average fulness, so as 

 " greatly to interfere with the progress of the spent and weakly fish to the salt 

 " sea. 



" I concluded then, 1st, that the real cause of the disease was the retention of 

 " the fish in the fresh-water comparatively stagnant, and containing an increased 

 " proportion of the lower forms of vegetable life (Algales, fyc.) : that one, 

 " perhaps more than one, form of fungus found an abnormal though con- 

 " genial home on the tissues of the fish weakened to the greatest extent in 

 " its vitality by its increased stay in the fresh water : that it was a provision 

 " of nature to drive the fish to the sea, similar, but of the opposite tendency, 

 " to the tide lice which drive them to fresh water. 



