200 THE SALMON RIVERS OF SCOTLAND 



From a note in The Fishing Gazette at the end of season 1907 it 

 appears that in that year the chief Conon fishings yielded a total of 

 212 salmon and grilse. The spring fish of the Conon are of the 

 small class, 8-10 Ibs., and are shapely and, in my opinion, of un- 

 common good flavour. 



The cruive dykes are situated where an island of perhaps 60 

 acres or so divides the river into a right and left channel. This 

 island is situated opposite Conon House, and about a mile above 

 Conon Bridge on the high road from the Muir of Ord to Dingwall. 

 The left channel is intercepted at its upper end by a dyke built 

 right across to the upper end of the island. The other channel 

 continues with a wide sweep round half the island before the 

 dyke is thrown across in a long /-shaped formation. The left or 

 upper cruive dyke has one fishing box ; the lower cruive has three 

 boxes. Only the box next the island used to be fished, the others 

 being closed by hecks. The photograph shows this cruive box with 

 its inscales in place in fishing order. It will be readily appre- 

 ciated how little chance the upper waters have had with this sort 

 of device as the only passage for fish except during the weekly close 

 time. 



EIVER MEIG. 



The total length of this river is about 24 miles, or double the 

 length of the Conon, which it joins at Little Scatwell. Two-thirds 

 up from its mouth Loch Beannachan exists at a level of 465 feet, or 

 nearly twice that of Loch Luichart. There is a fall a short dis- 

 tance above the loch, and thereafter the Meig is steep and broken 

 by the various rock terraces which cross it in its descent of 735 feet 

 from source to loch. The description of the river below this loch is 

 admirably given by Mr. Hinxman in his description of this district. 1 



" The Meig issues from Loch Beannachan through a deep accumu- 

 lation of fluvio-glacial sand and gravel, which to some extent holds 

 up the waters of the loch ; the rock is first met with in the bed of 

 the stream a mile below the outlet. Between Inverchorainn and 

 Milltown of Strathconon the river runs N.N.E., and nearly at right 

 angles to its higher course, through a straight canon-like valley, 

 whose lofty and precipitous eastern wall of shattered and reddened 

 rock forms one of the most striking features in the scenery of 

 Strathconon. This valley has been determined by a powerful line 



^'The Rivers of Scotland: The Beauly and Conon," Scottish Geographical 

 Magazine, xxiii. No. 4, p. 200. 



