MATURITY 155 



headquarters states definitely when sea-trout were first observed 

 spawning in that year. The Clerk of the Nairn District Board deserves 

 special mention for taking an intelligent interest in his work, and, it 

 might be added, for having a proper appreciation of his duties. As a 

 suitable statutory close time for sea-trout fishing, both by net and rod, 

 but more particularly by rod, can only be satisfactorily arrived at from 

 a close study of precise official statistics extending over a series of 

 years, it seems to me important that the queries now put by the Fishery 

 Board regarding sea-trout should be answered with some care and 

 exactitude by the clerks of the district boards to bring out this 

 information.^ 



It might be appropriate to place on record here my view that the 

 respective close times fixed for salmon are wholly inapplicable to 

 sea-trout, though statutorily they apply to both species of fish. As I 

 have already stated the sea-trout is by about a month the earUer spawner, 

 and in my opinion sea-trout ought not to be permitted to be caught at 

 all in Scotland in October, or at least the close time ought to begin 

 concurrently with the Scottish trout close time on 15th October, and 

 should be universal, just as the trout close time is. 



1. Mr. Caldervvood, in liis latest (1914) Report made to the Fishery Board for Scotland, 

 emphasises the importance of a more accurate study of the life-hi.story of the sea-trout, and in 

 his report he has included what one may term a preliminary sketch of what are generally helieved 

 to be the main facts of the sea-trout's career. One may express the hope that this preliminary 

 sketch is but the forerunner of a series of studies of the fish from his pen based, as Mr. 

 Calderwood'.s studies of the salmon have invariably been, upon an unchallengable mass of carefully 

 compiled statistics. The clerks of the various Boards can give him much assistance — if they will 



