Transaction 



o,,^^,■,r.;.l■-^. i i ^i • ^„,uOries: and the ordinary earth 



culturists had also their maggot ^^ , , , ,. ,. , , 



worms could be gathered h^^" ^""'^'^^ ^^ ''°'^'"S little boys to 

 follow the plough He ""■*^'"' ^'''''^^^ ""''^ *^'^ necessity, m con- 

 structing a pond of v'O^'iJi"?.' ^ov the food supply of the fish by 

 introducing aquati'" vegetation. There were thousands of acres 

 of barren water "^ *^^^ country— lochs and moorland pieces of 

 water which c'^'^*'^"^'^^ ^^^^ fish so small that they were not worth 

 taking out Many streams likewise contained no fish worth 

 catchino- These waters could be cultivated to a very considerable 

 extent ° ^ S^od many reasons had been adduced for the small 

 size of t''i^ ^^^^- ^""^ ^^''^^ *'^'^*^ '^^^^^ ^^'"^'*^ ^^^" ^'^^ numerous. Ho 

 had hf-'ii"*^ people i-ecommend the putting of pike into the water to 

 keep them down. That was the very worst thing that could be 

 (]orvx'e. The presence of pike was one of the gi-eat difficulties in the 

 •^^r ay of successfully stocking some of the lochs in Kirkcudbright, 

 of which there were so many. He did not believe that the trout 

 were too numerous in any of these mountain sheets of water. He 

 had seen fish do better when crowded in tanks than when dispersed 

 more thinly. He had reared two hundred or more large fish in a 

 pond 60 feet long and only 4 feet wide and 3 feet deep. It was 

 not that the fish were too numerous ; but it was probably a want 

 of food in these lakes. That want could easily be supplied. 

 Aquatic vegetation could be introduced if it was deficiejit, as it 

 often was in mountain streams, and shell fish or crustaceans could 

 be put in — the fresh water shrimp, for example. The snails were 

 perfectly harmless to trout in all stages. The shrimps, unfortu- 

 nately, preyed on the ova when they could get to it ; but he did not 

 think they could do a serious amount of damage when the ova was 

 naturally deposited by the fish, for the eggs were then buried deep 

 in the gravel. Another reason Avhich probably accounted to a 

 great extent for the small size of the fish in many waters was the 

 want of change of blood. He believed greatly in transferring fish 

 from one water to another — introducing, of course, as far as pos- 

 sible, really good fish. Many of our streams which are not large 

 enough to contain good fish could be best utilised by making a 

 succession of dams, which could be stocked really to any amount. 

 A stream which did not contain any trout worth mentioning could 

 in this way be made to produce simply tons of fish. 



