376 THE SALMON RIVERS OF SCOTLAND 



KIVER DOON, 



ANGLING SEASON: llth February to 31st October. 

 NETTING SEASON : llth February to 26th August. 



District Fishery Board meets in Ayr. Wilfred C. Maerorie, Esq., Solicitor, Ayr, 



is Clerk. 



The mouth of the Doon is just two miles along the coast, south 

 from the mouth of the Ayr, and the general direction of the river is 

 north-west to this point. The source is away in that high district 

 in the north-west of Kirkcudbrightshire, from which streams radiate 

 not only northwards, but also south-east to the Solway Dee, and in 

 a south and west direction to the Minnoch, the chief head stream of 

 the Cree. 



A little shallow loch with several islands, Loch Enoch, collects 

 the hill burns, and gives off two streams. It is very unusual to find 

 two outlets from a loch, but the Gala Lane and the Eglin Lane, the 

 two streams in question, maintain a completely separate course from 

 their source to Loch Doon, a distance of six miles. The word 

 "lane," as applied to a small tributary stream, is, so far as I know, 

 confined to the district of Carrick and to the counties of Kirkcudbright 

 and Dumfries. The Eglin Lane receives the waters of four small 

 lochs by other lanes leading from the west, and, joining with the 

 Whitespout Lane, is thereafter called the Carrick Lane for about a 

 mile and a half before it reaches Loch Doon. 



The river Doon proper flows from Loch Doon, a narrow sheet of 

 water four miles long, partly in Kirkcudbright, but chiefly in Ayr- 

 shire, and has a course of about 21 miles to the sea. The surface of 

 the loch is 680 feet above the sea, and is studded with five groups of 

 islands. Not far from the upper end is Castle Island, on which 

 stand the remains of an extremely old octagonal tower called Balliol's 

 Castle. Still nearer the head is Pickimaw Island, so called, no doubt, 

 from the nesting of black-headed gulls. The history of the early 

 inhabitants of this region seems to be matter of uncertainty. Chalmers 

 makes Balliol Castle the scene of the death of King Alpin of Dal- 

 riada in 741, which Skene believes to have occurred on the eastern 

 shore of Loch Ryan. A sister of Robert the Bruce seems to have 

 lived here, having become the wife of Seaton, the lord of these parts. 

 In 1826 nine " dug-out" canoes were found sunk in the loch near 

 the Castle Island. Two of them are now preserved in small pools 

 just below the outlet from the loch on the left bank, and are to be 



