238 BRITISH FRESH-WATER FISHES 
late Mr. Dunbar, who made good use of his opportunities as 
tenant of the whole net and rod fishings of the river Thurso to 
elucidate salmon problems, claimed to have proved that some, 
at all events, of the fish which run into the upper reaches in 
winter and spring return to the sea during the summer months 
without depositing their spawn, presumably to reascend the 
river in a gravid state in autumn. If this were so, then the 
same fish may have to run the gauntlet of the nets, not once, 
as is commonly believed, but three times—namely, in their 
first ascent, in their descent, and in their second ascent. 
This question is dealt with in the Report of the Edinburgh 
Committee, and dismissed with the remark that “there is 
absolutely no evidence that, once having fairly entered the 
river, they ever return to the sea in any considerable number.”’* 
Now it happens that, since this report was published (in 1898), 
I have received evidence, which can hardly be misinterpreted, 
to the effect that considerable numbers of the early running 
fish do return to the sea before spawning. In January, 1900, 
I became joint-tenant with five others of the whole of the net 
and rod fishings of the Cree and its tributary the Minnick, 
rivers of Western Galloway debouching into Wigtown Bay. 
All nets were removed from the inland and tidal waters, and 
the rivers were reserved exclusively for angling. By the 
beginning of July in that year a large number of salmon and 
grilse had run up to the upper reaches. In one short portion 
of the Minnick, so small in volume and so far away in the 
moors that it is seldom fished, one of our watchers counted 
120 fish, many of them salmon of 7 lb. to 12 Ib., which had run 
up in April and May, and had become dark and discoloured. 
Early in July there was a heavy spate; when it subsided, the 
watcher missed his fish, They had not run further up, because 
above that point the river consists of a mere confluence of 
burns and becks, where the presence of fish would have been 
easily detected ; so he set down their disappearance to poachers. 
* Life-History of the Salmon, p. 76. 
