126 



Appendices to Second Annual Report 



was 2s. per £1 in 1880. There has been no assessment since that 

 year. There is no regular water-bailiff specially employed by the 

 Board. But the Board pays a gamekeeper £10 a year to watch 

 the river. 



The Girvan is not so good a spawning stream as the Stinchar. 

 In the latter there are splendid beds near the sea, while in the 

 former the best spawning beds are 12 or 14 miles distant from the 

 sea, above the Linn of Blairquhan. 



In 1870, a gentleman, who had a long and an intimate 

 acquaintance with the fishings in the Girvan river and district, men- 

 tioned to Mr Buckland and myself that, eight years before, when, 

 by agreement among the Girvan proprietors, the sea-nets had been 

 removed to 500 yards distance from each side of the river's mouth, 

 and when no netting was permitted in the river itself below Bridge 

 Mill dam, there were ten times as many salmon as at the time he 

 spoke, when these restrictions had, for some years, been given up. 



The Boon. 



The Doon rises in that wild Highland district which forms the 

 northern portion of Galloway, a region of lofty mountains and 

 numerous lochs, in which many of the rivers falling into the 

 Sol way Firth and the sea that washes the coast of Ayrshire have 

 their sources. Its head-waters spring from Loch Enoch, a desolate, 

 granite-bound loch 1650 feet above the sea, from which a 

 considerable stream runs into the upper part of Loch Doon, a 

 beautiful sheet of water 6 miles long, and covering nearly 1300 

 acres. From the foot of Loch Doon, the river rushes through a 

 sluice cut in the rocks into ISTess Glen, one of the most picturesque 

 glens in Ayrshire, where there is only room for the river frothing 

 and foaming along its narrow channel, and a footpath along the 

 left bank. From thence, after a course of about a mile, it runs 

 into the meadows below ; passes not far from the flourishing town 

 of Dalmellington, which owes its prosperity to the ironworks in the 

 neighbourhood ; flows through Bogton Loch, which is terribly 

 infested with pike ; and, after a farther course of about sixteen 

 miles, falls into the sea within two miles of the mouth of the river 

 Ayr. When I first inspected the Doon in 1870, it was in a 

 very bad state, owing to pollutions and obstructions, and general 

 neglect of the provisions of the Salmon Fishery Acts of 1862 

 and 1868 ; and I have now much pleasure in stating, that since 

 then matters have greatly improved. Pollutions and obstruc- 

 tions have been much diminished, though there is still room 

 for improvement; there are now hecks at the intake and tail-lades 

 of all the mills on the Doon; and, thanks to the enlightened 

 liberality of the Marquis of Ailsa, the number of fish in the river 

 has been greatly increased by means of artificial stocking. Fly and 

 bag nets are still allowed between the mouths of the Doon and 

 Ayr. Seven flies and eight bags intercept the fish between the 

 mouths of these two rivers, which are little more than two miles 

 apart. In their admirable Beport to the Associated Heritors of the 



