SALMON OF THE SPEY. 125 



secondly, whoever expects to kill many fish in the 

 Spey must be half amphibious, able to wade up 

 to the middle all day long, for the river is so 

 broad that one cannot, from the shore, throw line 

 long enough to reach it. 



" The Spey salmon run very large. Many 

 are killed every season, weighing from between 

 twenty pounds to thirty pounds each ; and I have 

 known a few killed of the respective weights of 

 fifty pounds. I myself killed a still larger salmon 

 on the Spey, but always felt a delicacy in telling 

 the weight, as some people might suppose that I 

 was stretchins^ rather a lono; line. 



" There is no river in Britain where there 

 are such large numbers of salmon killed as in 

 the Spey. I have known Mr. Hoggarth's (the 

 great salmon fisheries' contractor of Aberdeen) 

 fishermen take out of a few pools with nets up- 

 wards of 1500 salmon in one day. A few years 

 ago Mr. Hoggarth rented on lease a few miles of 

 the Spey at 800/. a year. The rent, I believe, 

 is now reduced to 600Z. I have killed salmon on 

 the Spey fifty miles up the river, with sea lice 

 adhering to them, which is a proof of the rapid 

 rate of travelling of the fish, since the parasitical 

 insects drop ofl^' the fish after a sojourn of not 

 more than from twenty-four to tliirty hours in 



