APPENDIX. 207 



respecting the habits of both clean salmon and kelts in 

 the cold months of spring. Before the opening of the 

 fishing season, Mr. Mitchell, acting under the instruc- 

 tions of the Commissioners, fished with the net at se- 

 veral parts of the Tweed, marking the fish caught, and 

 returning them to the river. Of 13 clean salmon thus 

 marked, most were retaken after the season opened ; 

 and, the localities in which they were thus caught 

 having been in most cases those in which they were 

 marked, it appeared that clean fish have an indisposi- 

 tion to run upwards in cold weather without the incite- 

 ment of a flood, but choose rather to seclude themselves 

 in deep pools that afford convenient resting places : 



" At Tweedmill 5 were got at the opening of the season, 4 

 of which had lain in the same water for upwards of a month. 

 Another marked at Tillniouth on the 29|h of January was re- 

 taken at the same place by James Easton on the Mth'of April, 

 and another, marked at the same time and place, was caught 

 by angling ai Sprouston on the 17th of April by Charles Kerss, 

 fisherman there. Another trout, which was marked at Wellford 

 near Horncliffe, was caught at Tweed Mill. And the salmon 

 followed much the same course, being caught either at or some 

 little distance higher up the river than where they were marked, 

 although in the case of three of them they remained in the 

 same ground within the tideway for about two weeks after they 

 had been marked." 



Nor do kelts in early spring exhibit any decided 

 tendency to emigration. Many of those marked before 

 the 1st of March scarcely shifted their quarters for 

 several weeks. One, which had taken up a position 

 within the influence of the tide, about four miles from 

 the sea, was recaught at the same spot four weeks af- 

 ter it had been marked. (The marks used were gutta 

 percha labels, stamped "A. Mitchell, Tweed, 1858," 

 numbered from one upwards.) In cold weather, at 

 the beginning of the season, lew kelts are caught in 

 the nets. The inference drawn from these and other 

 facts is that kelts, during frosty weather, remain in 

 rocky holds in a semi- torpid state, and that " upon a 

 change of weather they leave their hiding-places and 



