FISHES. 291 



Mr. Irvine-Fortescue says, speaking of Salmo trutta, "A 

 few along the shores of Swanbister Bay ; we once caught 

 one of 6 Ibs. in a trammel-net in 8 fathoms of water there. 

 They run up the Orphir burn to spawn, and are there unmerci- 

 fully slaughtered." 



Further on, under S. fario, the same gentleman says : 

 " Occasionally caught in a net along the shores of Swanbister 

 Bay up to two pounds. There is no stream large enough to 

 hold fish of this size, except during a spate. The only other 

 fresh water in the neighbourhood is the loch of Kirbister, 

 where the fish rarely exceed three-quarters of a pound." 



" In the loch of Harray the trout appear to congregate in 

 shoals. In fly-fishing you may fish along the shores for hours, 

 and hardly ever get a rise, till at last one comes upon a shoal 

 in some bay, when you may fill your basket. In 1873, with a 

 friend, we once in this manner caught 12| dozen, weighing 

 40 Ibs., in about two hours. We landed them in twos and 

 threes as fast as we could get them out. I put on four flies, 

 and once landed four trout at a time ; the best dozen averaged 

 1 Ib. each. In other lochs the trout appear pretty evenly 

 scattered over the whole." 



Trout of very large size are caught in Stenness and Harray. 

 One of 30 Ibs. was got on a set line in October 1888, which was 

 set up by Malloch of Perth, and is now in the possession of the 

 landlord of the Masons' Arms, Stromness, where we saw it a 

 very handsome male fish, especially thick towards the tail. 



As before said, our personal experience of trout in Orkney 

 is entirely confined to the island of Rousay. There are three 

 lochs the Muckle and Peerie Waters, and Saviskail. The two 

 former are close together, and connected by a short burn, and 

 from the Muckle water the Sourin burn leads to the sea. At 

 the mouth, or rather close to it, is the inevitable mill, and here 

 the greater part of the larger sea-trout meet their doom. A few 

 of the smaller ones, however, manage to get up at least as far as 

 the sluice-gates on the loch, as a friend of ours, while staying 

 with us at Westness, caught a sea-trout of about 1 Ib. in weight, 

 though entirely black from the nature of the water and the 

 peat-hole from which it was taken. 



