SCOTLAND 



fishing is not nearly so excellent as it was some ten 

 or fifteen years ago ; but I have every hope, of it 

 improving. The netting down the Tay harms the 

 loch very much indeed ; but the taking-off of the 

 nets from Friday night until Monday has done ome 

 good, and is a move in the right direction." 



Pondering these statements, I perceived that the 

 variation in the number of fish caught from year to 

 year might be partly explicable in a simple manner. 

 If there were not so many anglers on the loch in one 

 year as there had been in another, a difference in the 

 sport would be accounted for without any speculation 

 as to whether the stock of fish might be diminishing, 

 or as to whether the fish were becoming more difficult 

 to catch. It turned out that there was no help in 

 that conjecture. The boats on the loch, of which 

 there are about twenty, are, and have for a long 

 time been, as much in use one year as they were in 

 any other. Some of them are always in use during 

 the best months of the season, which begins on 

 January 15. Where was enlightenment to be found ? 

 So I asked, and ask again. Lord Breadalbane's 

 general impression, which is that salmon fishing in 

 all waters is going down, was not compatible with 

 a statement which, at his own very obliging wish, 

 has been made out and sent to me by his agent, Mr. 

 James Glen. Here is the statement : 



[LocH 



