Fishery Board for Scotland. 



Ixiii 



regulated by the Tweed Fisheries Acts of 1857 and 1859 ; and is Salmon 

 not under the superintendence of the Fishery Board. It is, there- Fisheries, 

 fore, no part of our duty to notice the salmon disease in it. That 

 will be found fully discussed in the Annual Eeports of the Tweed 

 Commissioners. But, in the Don and the Deveron, the disease 

 was very virulent in the course of last year ; and yet in both these 

 rivers, as well as in the Aberdeenshire Dee, where the disease showed 

 itself to a much smaller extent, the fishing was unusually good. 

 All these rivers were full of salmon. Mr Young was instructed to 

 visit them in the latter part of last year, and he gave in a 

 Eeport to the Board on the salmon disease which had broken out in 

 them. The inspector of the Don said that 700 fish, that had died 

 from the disease, had been taken out of the lowest 12 miles 

 of the Don and buried ; and, on the Deveron, it was stated that 

 the number of diseased fish taken out was six times as many as 

 had ever been seen before. On the Dee, a quick, sharp-running 

 stream, with scarcely any pollutions or obstructions, there was no 

 epidemic of the disease, though there were several sporadic cases. 

 In all these rivers, the disease appeared first among the ascending 

 fish, close to the sea, and then gradually extended inland to the 

 upper reaches of the river. Some of the water-bailiffs and game- 

 keepers examined by Mr Young, stated that they had taken diseased 

 fish from the river close to the sea, with the sea-lice on them, and 

 said that they thought the disease had been contracted in the sea, 

 contrary to the generally received opinion that salt water exercises 

 a curative effect upon the disease. The explanation of this is 

 probably to be found in what Professor Huxley writes on the sub- 

 ject in his elaborate and interesting account of the salmon disease 

 in the Twenty-first Annual Eeport of the Inspectors of Salmon 

 Fisheries for England and Wales. He there writes as follows : — 

 ' There is great deal of reason to believe that the Saprolegnia 

 ' growing on salmon is killed by salt water ; and that the injured 

 ' skin may heal and become covered with a new epidermis when a 

 ' diseased salmon enters the sea. But the discovery that the root- 

 ' hyphse of the Saprolegnia ramify in the derma, where the sea 

 ' water cannot reach them, raises a curious and important question. 

 ' It becomes possible that a diseased salmon returning to the sea 

 ' may regain a healthy epidermis and appear perfectly sound ; but 

 ' that, like a potato-tuber invaded by Peronospora just before the 

 ' approach of winter, the fungus in the derma may simply lie 

 ' dormant, and be ready to spring into activity as soon as the fish 

 ' returns to fresh- water. Cases of the appearance of the disease in 

 ' quite fresh run fish are occasionally reported, which would be 

 ' readily explicable should this supposition turn out to be well- 

 ' founded.' 



SUMMAEY. 



A comparison of the accounts of the herring fishery of the past Totals of 

 two years shows that the total quantity of herrings cured in 1883 Q^™ gs 

 was 1,269,412J barrels; the total quantity branded was 470,995 J Branded, and 

 barrels ; and the total quantity exported 8 90,760 \ barrels ; being a Ex P orted - 

 decrease on the preceding year of 13,561 barrels in the quantity 



