SMOLTS 19 
merely dammed back by the inflow of the denser 
water of the lower estuary. At Kinfauns, the part 
of the river indicated, the smolts accumulated in 
great numbers, so that with a small-meshed sweep 
net it was possible without any difficulty to catch 
them in hundreds at a time. We attempted to 
follow the smolts in their further descent, and 
proceeded down the river, drawing the net on one 
side or other as we went. From the time we left the 
neighbourhood of Kinfauns the smolts became fewer, 
and when we had descended about two miles and a 
half, and had reached a point a short distance below 
the mouth of the river Earn, where sea-weed begins 
to make its appearance upon the shore, smolts could 
not be found at all. We proceeded down the estuary, 
however, and, thanks to the courtesy of the Tay 
Fisheries Company, who granted the use of their 
steam yacht, completed a survey of all available 
fishing places, both on the shores of the lower 
estuary and on the shallow banks in mid stream 
near the Tay Bridge, till eventually we reached 
Budden Ness and the open sea, some twenty miles 
below our starting point. Not another salmon smolt 
did we catch, however, although sea trout smolts 
were every where in evidence, as well as brown trout, 
herrings, flounders, a young turbot, sand eels, 
pipe fish, and various marine shore forms. In this 
we repeated the experience of Herr Dahl in his 
attempts to follow salmon smolts from the rivers of 
Norway down the fjords.* 
In June of the following year (1904) I was able 
* K, Dahl, “ Girret og Unglaks,” Christiania, 1902. 
