410 



Appendices to Fifth Annual Report 



be dismissed, and the judgment of the Sheriff- Principal affirmed, and also 

 with expenses. 



Lord Craighill said he concurred entirely with their Lordships. 



Lord Rutherfurd-Clark concurred. He was of opinion that the River 

 Doon between Doonfoot Bridge and the ordinary high-water mark was a 

 private river in all essential respects, and in no sense was a navigable river, 

 and that, therefore, the Acts of Parliament founded on did not apply. 



Counsel for the Defender and Reclaimer — Mr Muirhead, Mr Blair, and 

 Mr Darling. Agents— Hunter, Blair, & Cowan, W.S. 



Counsel for the Pursuer and Respondent — The Dean of Faculty, Mr 

 Salvesen, and Mr Gardner. Agents — Stnrrock & Graham, W.S. 



NOTE V.— APPENDIX G. 



REPORT ON SALMON DISEASE IN THE SOUTH ESK. 



Superintendent s Report anent the Destruction of Salmon by Fungus. 



Brechin, 23rd February 1887. 



To Messrs Shiell & Don, 



Clerks to the South Esk Fishery Board. 



Gentlemen, — I beg to lay before you this Report concerning the fungus 

 which has been so detrimental to the salmon in the river South Esk during 

 the past close season. 



The first appearance of this deadly disease that I noticed was in the month 

 of August 1886, when I found one dead sea-trout in the Kinnaird water, to 

 all appearance killed by fungus. The disease made little progress until 

 about the end of the month of September. At that time I noticed lots of the 

 fish slightly marked with it on the back and tail fins. Towards the end of 

 October great numbers of the salmon lying in the pools below Brechin were 

 terribly marked with fungus, some of them almost covered with it. 



On the 17th October the river was in flood, and I saw some fungoid fish 

 going over the dykes on their way to the upper waters ; but although diseased 

 fish proceeded to the upper reaches of the river, very few diseased ones were 

 found there, as only 6 fungoid dead fish were found above Brechin. 



But the fish in the lower waters, viz., below Brechin, were in a lamentable 

 condition, some of them being completely blind. In some of the pools, where 

 hundreds of fish were lying, scarcely one being free from fungus. By the 

 end of December 1886 I considered the disease was at its height in the South 

 Esk, only about that time the frost set in, and most of the river being covered 

 with ice, the fish could not be seen so well. On the 22nd January 1887 the 

 ice broke up, and great numbers of the diseased fish were carried down with 

 the floods which occurred at that time, but a good few are in the river still, 

 especially between Brechin and the Bridge of Dun, and although some of the 

 fish are very bad with fungus, they are very lively, and the fungus coming 

 off them. I am of the opinion that fish begin to get better of that disease 

 towards the end of January (I noticed the same improvement in the South 

 Esk towards the end of January 1884) ; at all events, the disease is not so 

 infectious at that time as it is in the fall of the year, because, during the 

 months of January and February, when clean spring salmon proceed into the 

 river it is seldom that any of them are touched with fungus ; whereas, in the 

 months of October and November, fish are not in the river many days until 

 they are infected. 



