Fishery Board for Scotland. 



Ixi 



1 Vigilant/ as well as the two inspectors, and all the fishery Marine Police, 

 officers in the Board's service, to b3 Sea Fishery Officers under Appointment 

 the Act, by whom, subject to the directions of the Board, its pro- 

 visions may be enforced. 



of Board's 

 Officers as 

 such. 



SALMON FISHEKIES. 



Since the constitution of this Board in the end of 1882, Mr Young, inspection of 

 inspector of salmon fisheries, has made three inspections by the £ al J non . 



r isn cries bv 



direction of the Board, with Eeports following thereupon. The first Mr Young, 

 of these was made in the spring of last year, and comprised the 

 nineteen salmon rivers on the east coast, from the Forth to the 

 Kyle of Sutherland, both inclusive. Nearly all the principal 

 salmon rivers in Scotland are comprehended in this group; and the 

 annual value of the salmon caught in these nineteen rivers, and in 

 the fixed nets on the adjoining sea-coast, is probably at least 

 £125,000, while the number of men employed in net-fishing and in 

 watching the rivers is upwards of 2000. The gross yearly value of 

 the salmon caught in the fishery districts of the Tay and Spey 

 alone must be about £70,000. The Eeport on these east coast rivers 

 was appended to our First Annual Report to Parliament, in which 

 our views generally in regard to it were submitted. It gives 

 a full description of the rivers inspected ; of the modes of fishing 

 employed ; of the obstructions, natural and artificial, to the passage 

 of salmon ; of the pollutions by which some of these rivers are 

 contaminated ; and of the salmon disease which was generally pre- 

 valent. It also discussed the provisions .of the existing Salmon 

 Fishery Acts, and the improvements which seem called for in any 

 future legislation. 



During last summer, Mr Young also inspected, by direction of inspection of 

 the Board, the salmon rivers on the Scotch side of the Solway Firth ^y^ h f r e Ud 

 and the salmon rivers of Ayrshire. In May of the present year, he Salmon nivers. 

 likewise made a personal inspection of the rivers and lochs above 

 the Falls of the Tummel, one of the principal tributaries of the Tay, inspection of 

 that would be opened up to salmon by placing an efficient fish- ^ers above 

 way on these falls. Thirty miles of rivers, with much good spawning Falls of 

 ground, and many fine angling streams and pools, and 20,000 acres of TummeL 

 lochs, would be opened up to salmon by such a ladder. A fishway on 

 the Macdonald or Virginia system of fishway building, which has been 

 so successful in the United States of America, and a model of which 

 was exhibited at the International Fisheries Exhibition in London, 

 would probably be the cheapest and most effectual. The Falls of 

 Tummel are 16 feet high, and the cost of a fishway, on the 

 Macdonald principle, would not, it is believed, exceed £350. 

 Colonel Macdonald, the inventor of this fishway, is Commissioner 

 of Fisheries for the state of Virginia; and, in the Appendix to his 

 Eeport of 1883 to the Governor of Virginia, there is a full account 

 of this fishway, accompanied by several illustrative diagrams. Mr 

 Young's second and third Reports above alluded to form Appendix 

 G, at the end of this Eeport; and in regard to the second of 

 these Eeports we have the honour to inform you that, after having 

 given it our best consideration, we approved of it generally, and 

 resolved that after Mr Young has completed his inspection of the 



