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Appendices to Fifth Annual Report 



the provisions of the Fishery Acts. In his book on Orkney and Shetland 

 Mr Tudor says of this loch : — 



It, like the Lochs of Stenness and Harray, has been raked to death with the 

 otter, but, if that can only be stopped, it ought to become a very fair angling 

 water. 



The Loch of Boardhouse, or Birsay, is connected with the Loch of Hund- 

 land by a broad burn, almost a river, about a mile long, with fine streams 

 and pools. Hundland has a circumference of nearly 3 miles, and its 

 banks are low and fertile for this part of the country. It abounds in trout 

 of good quality, averaging four to the pound. If the gravel bar were 

 removed from the mouth of the Barony Burn, which drains the Loch of 

 Boardhouse, sea-trout could freely ascend in autumn both to that loch and 

 to the Loch of Hundland. 



The Loch of Swannay is the largest and — as an angling loch — the best 

 of the three considerable lochs in the north-west mainland of Orkney. 

 It is between 5 and 6 miles in circumference, and is connected with the 

 sea by a short stream which used to wind through a valley, but whose 

 course has been changed, so that it now flows through a straight cutting 

 till close to the sea, into which it fails over a series of rocky ledges 

 belonging to the Orcadian flagstone series. The bay into which it falls 

 is completely exposed to the full force of the sea from the west and north- 

 west, and seems to have been scooped out by the force of the fierce Atlantic 

 waves ; as all along the bend of the bay huge masses of the slaty rock of 

 which it it composed — some of them tons in weight — are piled up and 

 strewn about. It would be neither difficult nor expensive to cut a passage 

 through the rocky ledges over which the stream falls into the sea, so as 

 to allow sea-trout to pass into it and up to the Loch of Swannay. But 

 then such a passage would probably be blocked up and rendered useless 

 by the first great storm from the west or north-west; so that it would not 

 only be necessary to cut or blast the passage in the first instance, but also 

 to watch it and clear it out when choked up by blocks torn up and rolled in 

 by the waves. The trouble and expense of this could never be repaid by 

 any probable improvement in the character of the angling in the Loch of 

 Swannay. Large sea-trout have often been seen and caught in the Bay 

 into which the stream from Loch Swannay falls, and one well-informed 

 Orcadian stated to me not only sea-trout but salmon also. With regard 

 to the yellow trout fishing in Swannay, one accomplished angler, who had 

 been fishing the loch for some days previously to my visit, told me that 

 the trout average half a pound, that they are very game fish, firm and 

 well shaped, and cut as red as a sea-trout. 



On the 10th July last, I took a boat at Stromness, and sailed over 

 to the island of Hoy, where I had the advantage of meeting Mr Heddle, 

 the proprietor, who was residing at Hoy Lodge. Under his guidance I 

 walked across the island, through a grand mountain valley, in parts of 

 which you might fancy yourself in the heart of the Highlands. The 

 view as you cross the water-shed and gain a glimpse of the Pentland 

 Firth, the opposite shore of Caithness, and the graceful peak of Morven 

 towering over the adjacent hills, is very striking. During part of our 

 walk we had the Ward Hill (1564 feet) on our left, and Cuilags (1450) 

 on our right. Among the smaller glens I noticed a pretty wooded ravine 

 called Armadale — a rare sight in these generally treeless islands. The 

 Rackwick Burn, which falls into the sea about 5 miles from Hoy Lodge, 

 holds more water than any stream on the Mainland, with the exception 

 of that which passes under the Bridge of Waithe ; and for some distance 

 from its mouth there is a considerable extent of deep still water flowing 

 between high banks, where heavy yellow trout may be caught when a 



