us The Salmon 
weight. This is their first return from the sea since migrating 
about three years previously as smolts, and they are therefore five 
years old. Very few, indeed, have spawned before. There is no 
difficulty in distinguishing between fish that have spawned before and 
those that have never spawned. The latter almost always have spots 
on the body near the gill-covers, and parasites are usually attached to 
their gills. I have now reached the end of the grilse stage. 
Other smolts going down at the same date—April—as the ones 
the grilse come from, instead of returning as grilse begin to run about 
the middle of December, when the grilse have almost ceased. These 
are clean fish, and will not spawn till November, being thus nearly a 
year in fresh water before spawning. The first run of these fish in 
the Tay usually weigh about 6 lbs. each, and the weight continues to 
increase with every catch up to the middle of June, when a weight of 
from ii «to 12 lbs. 1s: attaimed. By this’ time the run) is «completely 
over. From the results of our marking it will be seen that the earliest 
of these fish have been in the sea seventeen months from the time 
they went down as smolts, in April 1905; and the last, which were 
caught on the 14th of June, twenty-three and a half months. A very 
few may be later. I have paid particular attention to this run of fish 
for the last nine years, and I find that they disappear at the same time 
almost to a day every year. Many people hold the opinion that these 
fish are belated grilse, but I have always differed from them. These 
fish are similar to the small fish found in the North Esk, the South 
Esk, the Dee; the Findliorn, the Ness, the Beauly, the Brora, the 
Helmsdale, the Thurso, and many other rivers. Some years they are 
more plentiful than others: this year—1907—they were very plentiful. 
They run very fast and push far inland, are very strong, and able to 
surmount very high falls. Taking freely they afford splendid sport 
to the angler, while for the table they cannot be surpassed. In May 
and June few of them remain in the lower reaches. I have known 
them to run 30 miles in two days. Spawning commences about the 
middle of November, and being mostly in the higher reaches and in 
the smaller rivers, the fish fall back quickly afterwards. Besides what 
