64 THE SALMON RIVERS OF SCOTLAND 



salmon on No. i, and General Lane had eleven others one day off 

 No. 3. Also in this season of 1899, General Home had five fish on 

 several days. 



All these records are, however, not to be compared with the 

 captures made forty years ago by the late IMr. Ackroyd, who after- 

 wards moved to Badenloch on the Helm, for he frequently had twenty 

 spring fish in a day to his own rod. The following are the takes of 

 four recent years : — 



• 754 fish. 

 . 300 ,, 



1895 

 1896 

 1807 



iSqS 



3' '4 

 401 



while the season of 1899 was, I believe, the poorest of all. 



John Mackay, the water bailiff, who has been on the river for 

 over twenty years, thinks that the severe frost of 1895 did a lot of 

 harm to the ova ; and doubtlessly severe cold, by causing a river to 

 run very low, leaves many spa\Mring beds to be frost-bitten and 

 destroyed, though that of itself would not, I think, be sufficient to 

 cause the falling off. In the course of a chat with ilackay, he told 

 me that when he first came to Xaver there was a gentleman of the 

 name of ^larshall who labelled all the kelts he caught, in which 

 operation he was often helped by a farmer living on the bank ; 

 later on this farmer moved to a holding at RosehaU on the Casseley, 

 and there he saw an angler land a fish which had one of ;\Ir. ^Marshall' s 

 marks on it, fully one hundred and fifty miles from Xa^-er mouth ; 

 and happening later on to revisit Xaver, he told th: incident to 

 Mackay. 



