SMOLTS 19 



merely dammed back by the inflow of the denser 

 water of the lower estuary. At Kinfauns, the part 

 of the river indicated, the smolts accumulated in 

 great numbers, so that with a small-meshed sweep 

 net it was possible without any difficulty to catch 

 them in hundreds at a time. We attempted to 

 follow the smolts in their further descent, and 

 proceeded down the river, drawing the net on one 

 side or other as we went. From the time we left the 

 neighbourhood of Kinfauns the smolts became fewer, 

 and when we had descended about two miles and a 

 half, and had reached a point a short distance below 

 the mouth of the river Earn, where sea- weed begins 

 to make its appearance upon the shore, smolts could 

 not be found at all. We proceeded down the estuary, 

 however, and, thanks to the courtesy of the Tay 

 Fisheries Company, who granted the use of their 

 steam yacht, completed a survey of all available 

 fishing places, both on the shores of the lower 

 estuary and on the shallow banks in mid stream 

 near the Tay Bridge, till eventually we reached 

 Budden Ness and the open sea, some twenty miles 

 below our starting point. Not another salmon smolt 

 did we catch, however, although sea trout smolts 

 were everywhere in evidence, as well as brown trout, 

 herrings, flounders, a young turbot, sand eels, 

 pipe fish, and various marine shore forms. In this 

 we repeated the experience of Herr Dahl in his 

 attempts to follow salmon smolts from the rivers of 

 Norway down the fjords."^ 



In June of the following year (1904) I was able 



* K. Dahl, " CErret og Unglaks." Christiania, 1902. 



