Salmon of the Linn of Dee 



falls at a certain state of the water when their progress is not 

 so easily observed. 



Everything is against these ascending fish. To begin 

 with, they must first force their way through a stretch of 

 swirling foam, and, having arrived at the foot of the last 

 barrier which stands between them and their spawning beds, 

 they have no pool in which to lie and regain breath for the 

 all-decisive leap. A pool of a sort there was in olden 

 days, but it is now filled with rocks, so that it is from a 

 cauldron of foam that, dazed and half senseless from a too 

 plentiful supply of air, the unfortunate fish must make their 

 last rush. One's sympathies go out to them, especially when 

 a gallant effort fails to clear the top of the fall by inches only. 

 On either side of the linn, at the immediate foot of the upper- 

 most fall, are two narrow strips of comparatively quiet water. 

 The larger of the two is not more than a foot in width, but 

 as many as half a dozen salmon may occupy it at a time, 

 while in the other strip, on the south bank of the river, only 

 a single fish, or two at the outside, can be accommodated. 

 The water is so shallow here that the salmon are often 

 half out of the stream, and lie there in the last stages of 

 exhaustion until, in a second and more feeble attempt to 

 negotiate the fall, they are caught in the quick current, 

 and swept down to the big pool below the last of the 

 rapids. 



Twice a year is the linn busy with the passage of the 

 salmon. The first migration is in early summer, and consists 

 chiefly of those fish which have entered the river in mid- 

 winter. Fine, strong fellows they are, with their silvery 

 sheen still on them. They, at all events, have little diffi- 

 culty in passing the linn, and penetrate to the very highest 

 reaches of the river, where, under the shelter of Beinn 

 Bhrotain and Cam a' Mhaim in the heart of the Cairngorm 

 Hills they carry out the perpetuation of the species. The 

 second migration of the salmon, and that to which I have 

 more particularly referred, commences in late September, 



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