TAY DISTRICT 61 



or only 2,315,000 in the six years. I understand that the Tay 

 District Fishery Board, who have for some years borne the cost of 

 the operations, have now decided to discontinue hatching. The 

 historical associations of Stormontfield Ponds make it almost 

 inevitable that the step brings with it a certain amount of regret, 

 but to many it has seemed for several years that the value of the 

 establishment was slight ; that the mere hatching was productive of 

 little or no practical benefit and that the real benefit of Stormont- 

 field ceased when the famous experiments ceased in the middle of 

 last century. 



The migration of the smolt has since been determined with much 

 more accuracy by means of marking wild smolts caught in the lower 

 Tay at Kinfauns. In 1905 Mr. M'Nicol, under the supervision of 

 Mr. Malloch as Manager of the Tay Salmon Fisheries Company, 

 attached a small loop of silver wire to the dorsal fins of 5500 smolts. 

 The recapture of the marked fish as grilse proved first, that these 

 fish do not return in the year of their descent as smolts, as was 

 supposed to have been proved by the Stormontfield experiments, but 

 in the year succeeding that of their descent; secondly, that a 

 number do not return as grilse at all, but as small spring fish, and 

 summer fish in their fourth year, and also that some of them do not 

 even return then, but at a still later period. An account of these 

 results has been given elsewhere, 1 but I may here add that in 1908 

 further recaptures of the smolts of 1905 were made. 



KIVER TAY. 



The general characteristics of the water are really rather like the 

 characteristics of the Tweed. In both rivers one sees large and 

 often somewhat deep pools, long stretches of beautiful running 

 water, and, at comparatively rare intervals, rocky corners or rapids. 

 Both rivers also have at times fine stretches of gravel banks, at 

 times long stretches of grass-grown, rather earthy banks, with a 

 wealth of trees. In each river there is magnificent spawning 

 accommodation for salmon, and often surprisingly coarse gravel with 

 many stones the size of coconuts seem to be preferred by the fish. 

 The Tweed is without natural obstruction and has several obstruc- 

 tions supplied by man. The Tay has only some two or three 

 insignificant weirs, and the natural obstruction of the Linn of 

 Campsie. Each river, is now, as it were, enjoying the fruits of 

 advanced erosion. 



1 Auctor, The Life of the Salmon, chap. ii. Edward Arnold, 1907. 



