68 SALMON HATCHERIES- ARE THEY USEFUL? 



Early salmon-fishing has been disappointing this 

 season (1908) in most rivers, especially in the 

 hatcheries far north, where spring salmon generally most 

 1 tlie y abound. From the Spey, Dee, Beauly, Brora, 



and Helrnsdale the story is the same an 

 unusual scarcity of the small class of fish, running 

 from 6 to 12 lb., which, as shown above, have been 

 proved to be salmon re-entering the rivers for the 

 first time, having passed the grilse stage in the sea. 

 Coupled with the general scarcity of grilse in most 

 rivers during last summer and autumn, this dearth 

 of small springers seems to point to the autumn and 

 winter of 1904-5 as a bad spawning season, but it 

 must be confessed that this is not corroborated by 

 recollection of any special characteristic of that mild 

 and open season. 



A season like the present is just the occasion for the 

 advocates of the artificial propagation of salmon to 

 produce evidence of the good result derived from fish 

 hatcheries. It is claimed for these, and with justice, 

 that from 90 to 95 per cent, of the ova deposited in 

 boxes under cover are safely hatched into young fry ; 

 whereas it is impossible to doubt that a very large 

 percentage of ova spawned in the river beds is destroyed 

 by flood, frost, predatory animals, and other causes. 

 Nevertheless, many experienced fishermen and natural- 

 ists remain sceptical as to the effect upon the general 

 stock of releasing fry, even to the number of hundreds 

 of thousands, to run the gauntlet of the many risks 



