14 TO-AND-FRO MOVEMENTS OF SALMON 



Minnick. 1 We took off all the nets in the river and 

 estuary, and the fish had a perfectly free run to the 

 upper waters, where they usually appear at the beginning 

 of March. I was absent in Norway during June and 

 July. When I returned I was informed that the upper 

 reaches of these rivers had been full of salmon that 

 had run up in April and May, one of our watchers 

 having counted one hundred and twenty on his beat 

 when the water was low and clear. There was a heavy 

 spate in July, and nearly all these fish disappeared. 

 Whither? They had not run higher, because above 

 that beat the river becomes a ramification of hill burns 

 where their presence would have been easily detected. 

 I ascertained from the net-fishers in Wigtown Bay that 

 after the aforesaid spate they had been taking a 

 number of dark fish, such as they were accustomed to 

 look for after a flood in July. I was anxious to get 

 some of these fish for examination at the Edinburgh 

 Research Laboratory, but I was too late. I only 

 secured one, a male fish about 7 Ib. weight, much dis- 

 coloured. 



In the following year I forwarded to Edinburgh for 

 dissection three of these dark fish that had been taken 

 in the sea-nets. Unfortunately, I cannot now lay 

 hands on the report which I received on them from 

 Dr. Noel Paton ; but it was in effect similar to that 

 upon the single fish examined in 1900, that the skin 



1 We did not get possession of the left bank of a part of the upper 

 Cree until the following year. On 4th May 1900, I killed four spring 

 salmon on that beat with the fly ; but an angler on the opposite bank 

 landed eight with worm. 



