THE SPAWNING PERIOD 165 



on 9th November to fertilise the ova of some females, and which was 

 released after being marked with a Fishery Board label, was recaptured 

 on 26th November in the same stream, after an intervening period of 

 drought, when his milt was again used to fertilise the ova of other 

 females. This fish was thus engaged in active spawning operations 

 which extended (intermittently no doubt) over a period of 17 days. I 

 have no similar data in regard to female sea-trout, but I fancy from 

 watching them in the streams, that they shed their ova with some 

 regularity over a few consecutive days. 



It may be worth while here to interject that in Scotland it is an 

 offence against the Salmon Acts to disturb any " salmon " spawn or 

 any spawning bed, unless for the purpose of artificial propagation or 

 certain other specified purposes.^ 



Badly out of condition as many of the fish are by the time they come 

 to spawn it does not appear that the exhaustive effects of spawning have 

 a fatal result. The male sea-trout, as is the case with salmon, suffer 

 most, but few as compared with male salmon fail ultimately to regain 

 salt water. The female sea-trout suffer very little (Fig. 54). In 

 many years I have never seen, in the Loch Lomond district, a spent 

 sea-trout, either male or female, whose death could be attributed solely 

 to exhaustion following upon the spawning period, and after careful 

 inquiry made throughout a relatively large district such a case has never 

 been brought under my notice. I do not gather, either, from what I 

 know of other districts that such fatalities are anywhere very numerous 

 in the case of the sea-trout. The inference must on the whole be 

 allowed, I think, that only a very negligible proportion, in spite of great 

 emaciation of the fish, fails to survive the spawning period. 



In this connection the following extract from the Report of the 

 Tweed Commissioners for 1915 is interesting: — "The record of 

 salmon, grilse, and sea-trout found dead or dying from disease and 



1. See note ante, p. 92. 

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