APPENDIX. 89 



of September, when grilses and salmon are first observed 

 upon the shallows or spawning localities, they increase 

 daily in number up to the first of December ; the process 

 of spawning is at its height from the middle of November 

 to the middle of December. From the first of December 

 to the middle of the following March, the number of salmon 

 on the spawning beds diminishes in about the same propor- 

 tion as it has increased from the middle of September to the 

 first of December. At the end of March scarcely a pair of 

 salmon can be seen performing the functions of procreation. 

 (f I will now illustrate a very interesting fact in the 

 history of salmon ; it is important and useful also in 

 enabling us to determine the growth of salmon. If sal- 

 mon did not return from the sea to their natal rivers, the 

 result of marking them when descending to the sea, and 

 capturing them when ascending rivers from it, could not 

 be easily ascertained, and we could not with general accu- 

 racy compute their growth between the time of their 

 descent and ascent, between the time of their emigration 

 to the sea and their immigration from it to fresh water. 

 I hardly know anything connected with natural history 

 of greater interest than is contained in the following 

 passage : f Before salmon commence the preparation of 

 their beds I think, if not impeded, they will not stop 

 in ascending rivers from the sea, until they have arrived 

 at the spot, or at least very near the spot, at which 

 they themselves first received life. This opinion I am 

 able to illustrate by what appears to me exceedingly 

 interesting and conclusive facts. Lochshin, a fine piece 

 of water about twenty-one miles by four, situate in the 

 heart of the Sutherlandshire mountains, is the immediate 

 feeder of the River Shin, noted for its salmon pro- 

 ductiveness. The loch itself has four feeders, middling 

 rivers, viz., the Terry, Fiack, Garvee, and Currie, in 

 which, previously to the year 1836, not a salmon was 

 ever seen, though many were in the habit of entering 

 the loch or lake. In the year mentioned, at the request 

 of his Grace of Sutherland arid Mr. Loch, M. P., sal- 

 mon, male and female, were caught in the River Shin, 

 shortly before the spawning season, and conveyed to the 

 four rivers above named, amongst which they were dis- 



