61 



The fish may have been up the river and have come back again. The flesh ^m^f^ ^" 



below the mark was quite good. There was a good lot of fungus on it. Its ' 



fins were not injured. 



Once got a herring inside a salmon at Aberdeen. Cannot say what the 

 salmon eat here. 



James Nis bet,' salmon fisherman. — Had stake and bag-net fishings last 

 season at Lannerton, five miles north of Berwick. Has been there once 

 since. Was at Goswick 14 seasons up to last year with Mr. Crossman. 

 The fishing has been very bad. There are only bag nets at Lamberton. 



Has not caught half the quantity this year. All the fishings round Scotland 

 have been bad this year. It is a general bad season. Does not think the fish 

 he catches are all Tweed fish. Salmon have a tendency to go to their own 

 river. Can tell a Tweed fish from a Norwegian. Has caught Norwegian fish 

 here at the back end of the year. They were a blacker fish. 



Was watching at Peebles for five or six years, and saw a few bad fish 

 last season. The previous season and the season before that he saw many 

 bad fish. Left Peebles at the beginning of April. Has seen diseased fish 

 there, like the specimens produced, for five seasons. They were mostly male 

 fish. Saw them as far up as Stobo, but not many there. 



The disease now is the same as he h?.s seen in previous seasons. Saw 

 nothing in the middle fisheries. It is owing to the hard winters ; the ice 

 floating down injured the fish. They are mostly kipper fish. Hardly ever 

 saw a female fish diseased at Peebles. There are too many males, far more 

 than females. Has seen them below the cauld. Did not see many till after 

 the New Year at Peebles. They were trying to get up the river. The male 

 fish got up easily, and the females were left behind at Walkerburn ; hundreds 

 lay there because the water fell, and they could not get up. 



The fish have to jump up a slope. The. water falls perpendicularly down, 

 and the fish cannot get up. Much of the water goes down the mill leat. A 

 pass could easily be made. There is plenty of spawning ground above 

 Walkerburn. There are Manor, Lyne, Biggar Water, Spiddal Burn, and other 

 tributaries containing above 100 miles of water. The fish should be passed 

 up. Knows Walkerburn Dam well. The millers let the water run down the 

 leat on a Sunday. The water should be passed over the cauld. When the 

 water is small it would make little difference. The cauld is not 2 feet high. 

 Thinks the owners would allow a secondary weir to be built below the cauld. 



George Brown, tenant of Captain Milne Home's fishery at Paxton. — Has 

 been a fisherman all his life on the Tweed. The fishery is below the Suspen- 

 sion Bridge, in tidal water. Always, every year, sees diseased salmon. Never 

 saw it on the head till the last two years. There has been plenty of fungus 

 on the kelts for years past, but never saw a clean fish till two years ago. Saw 

 it first on kelts, and afterwards on clean fish in the spring (March and April) 

 of 18/8, and also last year. It was worse this year than last. It was all 

 over the fish. Never saw fungus on the head till 1878. Always saw kelts 

 dying and dead in former years in shallow water, but first saw clean fish in 

 i8/8> and 1879 diseased with fungus. Many of them never recover. 



In 1878 it was ordinary weather. The river was in ordinary state, not very 

 low. This year the river has not got very low. It was cold at the beginning 

 of the season. The clean fish and the kelts were coming down. 



The foul fish are too long in the river, and become attacked. Not so many 

 clean fish were attacked in 1878 as in 1879. No clean fish came up from the 

 sea diseased. Believes more clean fish were attacked because there were more 

 clean fish up the river early in the year. There was a great rum of clean fish 

 in February 1878 and in February 1879. The fish died in his water. Not 

 very many got to the sea. 



Gets the same fish over and over again, at different fisheries, and finds they 

 are getting worse. 



All the foul fish should be killed. All the kelts should be killed. Kelts 

 were once allowed to be killed, and since this was stopped clean fish have got 

 scarcer. 



The water is not salt at Paxton. When the river is small it tastes a little 

 brackish at high tide. Net fishing should be continued longer, because more 

 bull-trout would be killed. 



They devour the salmon spawn. 



