122 SALMON AND TROUT. 



wonderful to those who have watched the process, we may well 

 hesitate to accept all the ' tall stories ' on the subject which have 

 been put on record, with more or less show of authority. No 

 doubt the depth of water from which the spring is taken mate- 

 rially influences its height ; but I should hesitate to assert that 

 I had myself seen a perpendicular leap exceeding ten or twelve 

 feet and I have seen some thousands. Sometimes, as in the 

 Falls of the Beauly, the ascent is by a single bound, at others, 

 as at the Rogie Falls on the Scotch Blackwater, by a sort of 

 double jump, necessitated by the shape of the fall. Frequently 

 the fish are actually killed by the exhaustive violence of their 

 exertions or the injuries caused by falling back on the rock. 



Lord Lovat, as is well known, has a salmon leap where, in 

 consequence of the local conformation, a kettle of boiling water 

 can be so placed that the fish literally jump into it and are 

 boiled. 



Salmon ladders or stairs by which the fish are enabled to 

 surmount high weirs and other obstructions have proved of in- 

 finite value to the fisheries, and will, it is to be hoped, come 

 into yet more general and extensive use. The difficulty, of 

 course, is to obtain the running water-supply without diminish- 

 ing, or interfering with, the water-power of mill streams or 

 lessening their supply matters which have hitherto given rise 

 to much dispute and embroilment between the rival owners of 

 mills and of salmon rivers. As, however, it has been poinced 

 out by Mr. J. H. Horsfall inventor of the water economiser, 

 for avoiding a loss of 'headwater' such an interference or 

 injury to milling interests can only occur when the river is low 

 and when migratory fish do not run, and at such time no pro- 

 perly constructed fish ladder need have any water-supply. 

 When, however, the water rises and fish do run the water re- 

 quired for the supply of the fish ladder is merely a surplus 

 which the miller neither wants nor uses. It is, of course, quite 

 possible and, indeed, does not require much ingenuity to erect 

 fish passes or ladders in such a way or in such a position that 

 they prove only partially effective or entirely useless. The 



