182 THE PRACTICAL FISHERMAN. 



species of the lamprey, or stone-sucker, which is occasionally found at- 

 tached, having bored a hole through the skin. The liver of the fish 

 also occasionally is found to contain numbers of fluke-like worms, of a 

 very interesting nature. 



The importance of the salmon as a food and sporting fish cannot be 

 over-estimated, and the prominent legislation for the salmon interest 

 has resulted in a vast increase in production during the last decade or 

 two. 



Artificial breeding has also effected great alterations. This is espe- 

 cially apparent on the Tay, for example, which has increased in rental 

 value from a little over .9000 in 1855 to nearly ,23,000. 



From this it would certainly appear conclusive that artificial breeding 

 is an unqualified success if properly and scientifically pursued ; but it is 

 more than doubtful whether " artificial breeding can ever compete at all 

 with the natural process ; that is to say, the opening up of fresh spawning 

 grounds and allowing the fish to have their own way." 



Artificial breeding should, however, be encouraged as a supplementary 

 art likely to secondarily advance fisheries and instruct men more 

 thoroughly in the natural history of fishes. 



That curious question, the earliness or lateness of salmon seasons and 

 rivers, has been productive of much discussion. It is a well-known fact 

 that whilst some rivers are very late, others not far removed are pro- 

 portionately early, and the anomaly seems not easy of solution. There 

 also obtains an idea that an early river might be made a late river by 

 a judicious introduction of late river fish or ova, and vice versd. To 

 my mind the temperature of the water alone causes the earliness or 

 lateness of a salmon river. 



It has been said that rivers with a lake at the head are invariably 

 early. This, however, will not stand, for nearly all the rivers on the 

 western shores of Boss-shire, Inverness-shire, and Argyllshire are headed 

 by or traverse a lake, and it is a certainty that they are nearly all late. 

 However properly this, therefore, may apply in a few cases, it is clear 

 that as a theory, professing to account for the phenomenon referred to, it 

 is of no use. 



I approach the subject of salmon fishing with considerable trepidation. 

 When my eye travels over the pages of "Bibliotheca Piscatoria," and 

 beholds the array of authorities on the subject, whose writings are for 

 the most part the records of an experience extending perhaps over a 

 generation, or even more, I am conscious of my own unworthiness to do 

 justice to so great a theme. Yet will I not despair. My observation of 

 the habits of fishes and my long experience of coarse fish and all other 

 members of the salmonidoe, together with a studious course of salmon 



