298 Salmon-Fishing. 



But pending the result of inquiry and experi- 

 ment as to the cause of the distemper, much might 

 be done to minimise its ravages, if not entirely to 

 counteract them. Seeing that every diseased fish 

 which remains in a river immensely increases the 

 chances of contaminating those that are healthy, 

 there can be no question of the wisdom of the 

 policy now adopted in our rivers of removing and 

 burying or burning every fish infected with the 

 disease. There will, too, be general acquiescence 

 in the wisdom of the Acts of 1861 and 1865, which 

 gave powers to Fishery Boards to erect passes over 

 certain weirs and mill-caulds, below which fish 

 collect and overcrowd, so as to permit of their 

 ascent to the untenanted water above, where the 

 best spawning-beds often lie. But as the value of 

 this provision is very much diminished by the ex- 

 ceptions allowed in the case of weirs erected prior 

 to 1861, it is to be hoped that the Act will be 

 made retrospective, and be extended to all afflicted 

 streams. Even natural obstructions may be over- 

 come, in many cases at least, by the more extensive 

 use of the modern salmon-ladder. 1 



healthy fish may be readily infected, they also dispose of the 

 theory that the fish must have fallen into some morbid state 

 before they succumbed to the attacks of the fungus." 



i "At this moment," says Mr Young, in his Second Annual 

 Report to the Fishery Board for Scotland, 1883, "there are 



