of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



67 



Migratory Movements. 



Nine of the recaptures have been made on the coast, and two fish 

 are found to have wandered to other rivers. By combining these 

 recent recaptures with the few similar recaptures which we previously 

 have obtained, while disregarding several recaptures at such short 

 distances as to be unimportant in the present connection, I am able to 

 present the accompanying chart. All migrations down the coast in a 

 southerly or south-easterly direction are indicated in red, while move- 

 ments up the coast in a northerly or westerly direction are inserted in 

 black. There are 15 red lines and 5 black ones. The total of 20 out 

 of 274 recaptures, or 8|%, may or may not represent the actual propor- 

 tion of salmon which desert the districts and rivers of their birth ; but 

 the result is at all events of some value as indicating for the first time 

 with some probable degree of accuracy the nature of the coastal move- 

 ments which take place. Three of the red lines represent the 

 somewhat rapid movements of kelts after leaving the fresh water where 

 they were marked. Line A represents a kelt marked in the Grimersta, 

 West Lewis, caught in five months at Castletown, near Thurso, still 

 not recovered from the kelt condition. We are indebted to the private 

 marking of Mr. J. Byres-Leek for this interesting record, and I have 

 the specimen preserved. Line C represents a fish artificially stripped 

 at Sandside by Mr. Pilkington's keeper and released in a small burn 

 on 15th January of this year. It was retaken 14 miles up the river 

 Thurso, still a kelt, on 31st January, i.e., in 16 days. Like other kelts 

 in small streams, this fish had evidently made a prompt descent to the 

 sea. and, it may be, the artificial stripping affected its movements. The 

 reascent of a larger stream is striking and, so far as our records go, 

 unique. In the light of this Sandside-Thurso fish it is possible that the 

 Grimersta-Castletown fish marked by Mr. Byres-Leek had in the 

 interval between marking and recapture been in the fresh waters of 

 some north- coast river, thus accounting for the continuance of the kelt 

 condition. The third case is line K, an unspawned fish marked in Spey 

 on 14th December 1896, recaptured as a kelt in the Dee on 22nd 

 February 1897. If, as seems most probable, this fish spawned in the 

 Dee rather than the Spey, its movements are analagous to those of the 

 fish represented by line L, a large male fish unripe in the Spey in 

 December 1896, recaptured as a partially spent kelt in the Deveron in 

 March 1897. Three Helmsdale fish represented by letters H, I, and S 

 made southerly migration to Portmahomack, just south of Tarbat Ness. 

 Three other Helmsdale fish (E, F, and G) go from that river into the 

 Brora, while a Brora fish (D) goes north to Berriedale, and a 

 Helmsdale fish goes north to Dunbeath (line T). Two rather 

 remarkable migrations are represented by the lines B and V. The 

 particulars of marking and recapture of those two cases are : — 



No. 



Lbs. 



Inches. 



Condition. 



Sex. 



Date. 



Where Caught. 



7283a 1 



3 



24 



Kelt. 

 Clean. 



F. 

 F. 



20th April 1901. 

 17th July 1901. 



Loch Brora. 



Coast oft' Halladale. 



1158b 1 



oooo 



301 

 35 



Kelt. 

 Clean. 



F. 

 F. 



9th Dec. 1904. 

 26th April 1906. 



River Helmsdale, 

 River Halladale. 



Those two fish leaving neighbouring rivers were both taken 90-100 

 miles north in or at the Halladale river in the Pentland Firth. The 

 increase in weight in the former was 5| lbs. in 88 days; the increase in 



