of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



7 



restocking the river and for removing the sea nets of the district 

 and impounding the head waters so as to allow an increased run 

 of fish to ascend. On 9th November I replied at considerable 

 length with respect to the various proposals made advocating more 

 especially the removal of nets which are fished close to the mouth 

 of the river, and the impounding of head waters for the purpose of 

 augmenting the natural flow of water during summer conditions. 



Doon. 



The Doon, like the rivers on either side of it, has passed through 

 periods when its salmon fisheries were greatly reduced in value and 

 almost, it might be said, annihilated by the combined action of 

 pollution and over-netting. Discharges from coal pits or iron 

 works producing evil effects upon the river were especially 

 noticeable in 1870, 1889, and 1893, but since the last-mentioned 

 date the fisheries seem slowly to have improved. In 1896 a District 

 Fishery Board was formed which has since continued, and which 

 has materially assisted the recovery of the local fisheries ; but, in 

 spite of fixed net fishings on the coast and a run of spring fish 

 to the anglers in the river, the rental of the district has never risen 

 above £498. 



I went over this district from the mouth of the river to Loch 

 Doon, being much facilitated in my inspection by the kindness of 

 Mr. Macrorie, the Clerk to the District Board. 



The mouth of the river offers a rather peculiar question for 

 consideration. The action of the sea, in throwing forward gravel 

 and sand, appears to result in the gradual turning northwards of 

 the channel of the river. At the time of my inspection, the tide 

 being out, it was noticeable that the fresh water found its way 

 down the beach by two rather shallow channels, and that there was 

 a tendency for the water to break away into subsidiary channels. 

 I was informed that the more southerly of the two channels which 

 now exist was some years ago the only channel. Of the two now 

 existing the northerly one appeared to me to hold the more water, 

 and its oblique direction along the beach appeared to bear out the 

 probability of the statement that the actual mouth of the river is 

 slowly moving northwards. In defining limits of estuaries to such 

 rivers as run directly into the sea without inlets or natural 

 estuaries, the Administrative Commissioners, under the Salmon 

 Fisheries (Scotland) Act, 1862, commonly directed that a part 

 of a circle was to be drawn with a specified radius from a 

 point in the mid-channel of the river-mouth at low water. In 

 this way the prescribed estuarial area was secured to a river 

 with a shifting mouth. The estuary of the neighbouring river 

 Stinchar is so defined, and the same is true of the Girvan, 

 although in the latter case the action of the waves coming from 

 the south-west is entirely checked by the harbour pier. Well- 

 marked cases of rivers with changing mouths, and where the 

 estuaries have to be drawn in the way described, are the North Esk, 

 the Deveron, and the Spey. The Commissioners under the Salmon 

 Fisheries (Scotland) Act of 1862 originally proposed a conjoint 

 estuary for the rivers Ayr and Doon, from the Deil's Dike about 



