8 



Appendices to Seventh Annual Report 



passable for salmon ; because the only effect of this would be to entitle A, 

 who has a right to all the salmon fishings in the district, to come upon 

 D's lands and prosecute his right of salmon fishing. D, therefore, could 

 scarcely be blamed for opposing the removal of the obstruction, unless A 

 would consent to give him a share of the new salmon fishings to be 

 opened up by its removal. It is possible, indeed, that D might plead 

 that the Crown — in whom all the salmon fishings in Scotland were 

 originally vested — could only give the salmon fishings which it possessed 

 at the date of the charter, namely, those below the impassable falls, and 

 could not convey a thing not then in existence, namely, the salmon 

 fishings above ; and that, consequently, the new salmon fishings, to be 

 created by the removal of that obsruction, would vest not in A, but in 

 the Crown, and might be granted by the Crown to D, the riparian 

 owner; to A, who possesses the charter to the salmon fishings in the 

 district ; or to any other person. In several parts of Scotland, difficulties 

 of the kind described might arise in connection with the removal of 

 natural obstructions, and much care would be required in dealing with 

 the subject in any future legislation. 



Another difficulty springs from the fact that only about thirty 

 District Boards exist in the hundred fishery districts of Scotland. Who 

 then is to take up the matter in those districts where there are no 

 District Boards, and where it is, at the same time, desirable that certain 

 natural obstructions should be removed or made passable 1 Proprietors 

 of salmon fishings in such districts might, indeed, apply to the Secretary 

 for Scotland, and the consequence of such an application would probably 

 be a remit to the .Fishery Board for Scotland to inspect and report ; and 

 a satisfactory result might in this way be ultimately arrived at, though a 

 considerable time would, in all likelihood, elapse before the requisite 

 operations could be carried out. 



LOCHS-NA-BA, LYDOCH, TULLA, AND DOCHAKD. 



Almost all the lochs in the Black Mount abound in trout. The best are 

 Loch-na-Ba (612 acres) and Loch Lydoch. The trout in the former are 

 beautiful in shape and colour, cut quite pink, and are of delicious flavour. 

 They are occasionally got of 3 and 4 lbs. weight. But this is rare and 

 exceptional, and the average is from a third of a pound to half-a-pound each. 

 On one occasion I fished it with fly for five hours on a very bad day, with 

 pouring rain and an east wind, and captured 75 trout weighing 18 lbs. The 

 upper part of the loch is diversified by islands and indented by creeks and 

 winding bays, many of them shallow and weedy. The river Ba, which runs 

 into its head, is a brawling, rocky, mountain stream running through a 

 wild corrie to the westward of the public road between Inveroran and 

 Kingshouse. Its source is upwards of 2300 feet above the level of the 

 sea. Below the public road and between it and the head of the loch the 

 character of the river changes, owing to the more level surface of the 

 ground through which it flows, its course is still and quiet, and it preserves 

 the same character in the lower part of its course — a mile and a quarter 

 long — between the outlet of Loch-na-Ba and the head of Loch Lydoch. 

 When the river is in good order, the trouting here is excellent, and one of 

 Lord Breadalbane's keepers told me that he had once killed in a day in the 

 lower part of the Ba, with fly and worm, 10 dozen trout some of them 

 weighing 3 lbs. In the part of the river between the public road and the 

 head of Loch-na-Ba there are a number of pearl mussels, and occasionally 

 very good pearls have been found. The fishing in Loch Ba and in the river 

 is strictly preserved ; but visitors staying at the inn at Kingshouse, at the 



