126 



F. day: periods of migration. 



James Halliday deposed that salmon which enter rivers at any 

 period, but not for spawning, would return again to the sea* at times, 

 were such return not cut off by want of water on the shallows ; but if 

 floods occur, they descend. He continued, respecting the Sand Pool 

 in the Annan : ' Although we had fished this pool quite clean of fish 

 before the rain came on, yet whenever the rain did come on we then 

 continued fishing constantly, until the water rose so high that we could 

 not manage it, and we got the salmon and grilses coming down the 

 river all the time into the pool ; some of them had the appearance of 

 having lain long in the water, and were very much exhausted — quite 

 changed in the colour, as if they had hung in a smoky chimney for 

 some time ; others were very red in the skin, by having been in the 

 fresh water for some time. I have known us take 103 fish in one 

 night in that pool after the rain commenced, although we had fished 

 it clean immediately before. Our opinion was that the fish came 

 down from the river above, out of the rocky waters of the Bridekirk, 

 Loos, and Hoddam. The reason for fishing the pool at that particular 

 time, was that the river at the foot of it parted into three small 

 branches, and the pool itself was very deep. When the water was 

 rising the fish could not find their way so readily down there, and 

 they turned into the deep pool, and we kept drawing constantly as 

 long as we could manage the water.' 



Mr. Willis-Bund (' Salmon Problems ') has advanced reasons for 

 supposing that were a clean fish interrupted in its journey up stream 

 in fresh water, it drops back. Thus, he remarked that a poacher who 

 has missed gaffing a fish, first looks for his lost game in the pool 

 below, not in the one above. It has also been observed of the 

 Californian salmon, that when a rack is placed across a river the 

 unripe fish drop back. In November 1885 we proposed to investigate 

 this on a small scale in theTeith,and when netting salmon for the purpose 

 of obtaining ova, so far as was practicable each fish, on being 

 returned into the river, had an elastic band slipped over its tail ; and 

 out of eight shots with the net, and a total take of 43 fish, three of 

 which were clean, we only recaptured one marked specimen. We 

 worked down stream, except for the last two shots, and it was at shot 

 No. 7 that the marked fish was taken. 



During their ascent these fish must keep to the middle, or deepest 

 and safest part of a river, where, however, they are constantly 

 pursued by the netter, and this causes them to become shy. They 

 will not lie up, but seem more disposed to push on to their breeding 



* Dr. Gunther observed that a salmon changing from salt to fresh water, and 

 vice versa, several times in the year, Only occurs in rivers falling into the Moray 

 Firth. Naturalist, 



