THE SALMON AND WATER TEMPERATURE 129 



A most exhaustive series of sea temperature records 

 are available, and, as shown at some length in the 

 nineteenth Annual Keport on the Salmon Fisheries 

 of Scotland, the monthly means for January, Feb- 

 ruary, March, and April range on the east coast from 

 39° to 44° F., the lowest monthly mean of the whole 

 year being in March, while on the west coast it is evi- 

 dent, on the high authority of the late Dr. Buchan, 

 that " from October to March the west is at least 

 2° above the east, and in January it amounts to 3 '9°. 

 It is an event happening only once in a number of 

 years for the temperature of the sea in the west to 

 fall below 40°, but in the east this happens every 

 year." * In the west the three coldest months of 

 the year are in order February, March, and January. 

 The statement that the North Sea is, as compared 

 to the ocean water on the west coast, a cold sea in 

 the early months of the year, when spring fish run, 

 is therefore supported by facts. It is when we ex- 

 amine river temperatures during those early months 

 — which the theorisers referred to omitted to do — 

 that we find an entire absence of any warm water to 

 draw fish as supposed. 



A series of maximum and minimum morning and 

 evening readings taken from instruments kept con- 

 stantly immersed for four years — 1880-1884 in- 

 clusive — in the Helmsdale and Brora, early rivers 

 of east Sutherland, were kindly placed at my dis- 

 posal by the Scottish Meteorological Society. From 

 these we find f that the Helmsdale and Brora waters 



* Jour, Scot. Meteor. Soc, vol. i., N.S,, 1863-6G, p. 263. 

 ■f Nineteenth Annual Report, Fishery Board for Scotland, II. 

 p. 70. 



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