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with impunity at all times. They are birds of passage, and are mostly 

 all off to their loreeding grounds in the northern regions by the third or 

 fourth week of April ; so, after all, the damage they can do cannot be very 

 much, and they can be kept in check by shooting. Of course no one woulil 

 dispute that a Gannet or a GuU would not devour a par or a smelt if it 

 came across it, but there is no proof here to show that any serious injury 

 is being done by them to the fi.shery. I have seen plenty of articles 

 on the subject in the public journals, but not one of them pro\'ing what 

 they try to show. What one asserts another takes up, and a third, 

 perhaps shooting a bird with some salmon roe in its stomach, wildly 

 jumps to a conclusion without any further investigation ; and, as an in- 

 sl^xnce of this, lately an anonymous writer from the Tweed, to change 

 the subject from par and smolts to salmon spawn, calculates in some 

 marvellous way that tliere is from sea birds alone an annual loss of 

 £100,000 to tlie Tacksmen by the destruction of ova, and mentions 

 among a few. birds that have been shot in winter from twenty to one 

 hundred ova having been found in the stomach of each ; and to prove 

 it he names the following as being so destructive to the spawning beds 

 (mind, our friend is talking of salmon) : — The Auk, Diver, Eider Duck, 

 Gamiet (be it remarked, Gannets are not found in winter). Guillemot, 

 Kingfisher, Marrot, and Wild Duck. Granted salmon ova was found 

 in the stomach of each of these birds, Gannet included, it does not in 

 the least follow that this was obtained from off the spawning beds. 

 Now, it is a well-known fact, at least I never heard to thie contrary, 

 and I am sure every naturalist here present will bear me out when I 

 say, that salmon proceed up our rivers and streams for the purpose of 

 spawning in fresh water, and never do so in salt. Again, that the 

 whole of the birds mentioned, with the exception of the Kingfisher and 

 common Wild Duck, which I presume him to mean, are sea birds, 

 never found in fresh water except by the mere accident of having been 

 driven there by some great storm, when, if they do not manage to get 

 back, they perish. It is not the habit of the Mallard to dive under 

 water, and it woidd be quite impossible in the usual way, by tummg a 

 somersault with his head down, to hold his own on the fords in the rapid 

 water where the spa^vn is deposited, much less to gather it. The King- 

 fisher, a singularly rare bird in Scotland, supposing him to dash into 

 the water and drive his pointed bill through some inches of rough 

 gravel and reach the spawn — which I doubt his ability to do, or his 

 attempting it a second time if he did — from the paucity of their 

 numbers could not add much to the £100,000 annual loss. Another 

 common accepted fact is, that the common whitmg is a sea fish, and not 

 a fresh water one. Would the anonymous writer, I wonder (as was 



