60 SALMONID^ OF BRITAIN. 



clean fish may be pvesent in a river -n'liicli might he reasonably captured for 

 food without injuriously affecting future years' supply?* These fish are well 

 conditioned, and some may be observed ascending during almost every month of 

 the year. 



the Esk or the Annan ; the fish enter it earlier than they do the others by nearly six weeks .... 

 Fishing in the Solway, the Eden, and the Dee at Kirkcudbright, might commence on the 2nd 

 of February ; but in the Annan, the Esk, and the Nith, should not begin earlier than the middle 

 of March . . . The salmon that are caught in the Dee are quite out of season fully a month before 

 they are in the Nith and the Annan ; these are two very late rivers." He likewise stated that in the 

 Nith last season his tenant commenced on the 11th March. He was informed that he then killed 

 upwards of 200 salmon, some of them positively not spawned. J. Proudfoot deposed that, " in 

 the spring of the year the fish always occupy the north side of the Tay (i.e., the sunny side of 

 the river). The north-side fishing kills far more fish than the south side " {Report of Commis.^ion 

 for 1824, p. 28). 



In Yorkshire their ascent as fresh-run fish varies greatly, and is dependent upon the state 

 of the rivers, if either July, August, or September are wet the salmon commence running from the 

 sea, if otherwise, their ascent is delayed until the autumn rains set in {Yorkshire Vertebrata, p. 126). 

 ,S'/;- WiUiam Jardinc observed that the causes influencing ascent are as yet undecided, and 

 where the time varies much in neighbouring rivers they are less easy of solution, \yitli but few 

 exceptions the northern rivers are the earliest, and it has been suggested that this variation in the 

 season may be dependent upon the temperature of the water, and that such Highland rivers 

 as have their origin in large lochs are all early owing to the great mass and warmer temperature 

 at their sources, and that the eggs in such localities are earlier hatched. Thus the Oykel in 

 Sutherlandshire, springs from a small Alpine lake, perhaps about half-a-mile in breadth: while 

 the Shin, which is a tributary of it, coalescing at about five miles from its month, takes its rise 

 in Loch Shin, a large and deep extent of water, and connected to a chain of other lochs. The 

 river Shin, from its course between the loch and the tideway of the Kyle, has its temperature 

 several degrees higher in winter than the waters of the rivers Oykel and Cassley, with which it 

 mingles on entering the Kyle ; and the temperature is several degrees lower in summer than the 

 waters of the long-run, hill-collected, and sun-heated rivers. " To be sure respecting the tempera- 

 ture, a thermometer was regularly kept. The salmon soon finds out the warmer side of the 

 estuary, and the river from which that warm water flows. It is well known that salmon during 

 the winter and spring months, when the water of the warmest river is cold, always run on the 

 sunny side of the estuary, that is, as much as possible on the north side, and there during that 

 time the run of fish is to be found. In the summer months, that is, after the 1st of May, the fish 

 run on the opposite side of the estuary. The high temperature of the water at that time induces 

 them to seek as much as possible to get under the cool shade of the south banks, where there is the 

 least influence of the sunbeams. Of the many rivers going into the estuary, the only one which 

 produces early fish is the warm Shin." 



Bvcldand considered that clean-scaled, well-developed, fat fish run up some rivers durmg 

 February and March, possibly earlier ; that these ascending fish must meet the descending kelts. 

 Or in short that there is a small sjyring migration ascending in contradistinction to the usual 

 large antumnal migration for breeding purposes. He found that the amount of fat upon the 

 pyloric appendages of these spring fresh-run fish, less than what is seen in such as migrated later 

 for breeding purposes. Denying that they are barren, he considered that they would not breed 

 the season they ascended the stream, or in fact that they were temporarily sterile. He thought 

 they had laid up sufficient fat in the sea or estuaries to take a run into fresh water, fancying they 

 might be the early kelts of the previous year, which having reached the sea in January, re-appear 

 as clean fish in thirteen months, or February the next year, or even very large fresh-run fish ni 

 twenty-five months, or February the succeeding year. He likewise remarked that it is impossible 

 to convert a "late" into an "early" river. 



* According to Isaak Walton, " so there are some few rivers in this nation that have Trouts 

 and Salmons in season in winter, as 'tis certain there be in the river Wye in MomnoutlisJiire, 

 when they be in season, as Camden observes, from September to April." 



In the Beport of the Salmon Commissioners for 1861 is a Table showing, as far as could 

 be ascertained, the periods at which the local justices fixed the close time for rivers in their 

 respective districts. Thus, in the Trent and Somersetshire Avon it began on August 12th, in the 

 Fvibble August 31st, in many rivers in September, some in October, others in November, a few in 

 December, and in the Devonshire Avon in the middle of January, ceasing on May 6th. These 

 varying periods would seem to show either that the salmon bred at dift'erent times in different 

 rivers, or were variously in season at difi'erent places, or that the close time was not arranged 

 solely'in the interests of the spawning fish, some having probably been selected in order to allow 

 the trout to get into condition before being fished for. 



It is unnecessary to enter upon a detailed examination of how, up to 1858, three different close 

 seasons were in force in Scotland, and which period was supposed to be fixed in accordance with 

 the time at which these fishes bred, as for instance in the Solway, the Tweed, and the fisheries 

 to the north of the latter river. How in England and Wales, up to 1861, the close season 

 commenced in various localities from August 12th to the middle of January. How after 1861 

 this season was arbitrarily fixed between September 1st and February 1st ; and how in 1873 an 



