38 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



The explanation of the entrance of Salmon to rivers 

 long before the spawning season has been shown by the 

 investigations of Dr Noel Paton and others, published in the 

 Reports of the Fishery Board for Scotland, to be intimately 

 connected with the highly nourished state of the homing fish. 

 It is true that Salmon of some seasons are in relatively 

 poor condition, but we may conclude that the state of 

 nutrition, rather than the spawning impulse, is the factor 

 which prompts early fish to leave their feeding grounds for 

 fresh water. 



That Salmon return to the locality where they have 

 been hatched has long been recognised. Frank Buckland 

 used to say he hoped it was true, for many thousands had 

 been hatched in his kitchen. Isaak Walton, in his Compleat 

 Angler, tells us in 1653 of ribbons or tapes tied to young 

 Salmon and of the fish being again caught at the same parts 

 of the same river. There seems to have been a disposition 

 on the part of many of the earlier writers to emphasise the 

 exactness of the locality. They were not content to point 

 out that fish returned to the same river system, or even the 

 same tributary, but went the length of stating the pools 

 fish regarded as their homes. 



Mackenzie of Ardross, in 1823, marked both adult 

 Salmon and Grilse by the attachment of brass wire, a 

 peculiarly unsuitable metal. A former Duke of Atholl used 

 copper discs the size of halfpence, stamped with " Dunkeld" 

 and a number, and these he attached, by copper wire, to 

 the caudal peduncles of unfortunate fish. It is unnecessary 

 to refer to the great number of experiments made by the 

 uncertain method of mutilating the adipose fin, for these did 

 not produce results of any scientific value. In two periods, 

 however, in the middle of the nineteenth century, the Tweed 

 Commissioners carried on the systematic marking of Salmon 

 and Bull-trout Smolts by twisting a piece of silver or other 

 wire round the maxillary bone. Some sixty-four recaptures 

 were recorded, the great majority being in the Tweed or 

 on the coast near the river mouth, but isolated recaptures 

 occurred from the Forth, the North Esk, the Coquet, 

 Yarmouth, Montrose, and Aberdeen. The marking was 



