274 



A2')pendices to Fourth Annual Report 



river might amount to 50 salmon, and 500 sea-trout. Yet the Gress 

 is scarcely so large as the Water-of-Leith at Edinburgh. 



I have been furnished, through the kindness of Mr Mackay, Chamber- 

 lain of the Lews, with the returns of the Gress fishings for 10 years, and 

 I find that the best year for salmon was 1883, when 78 were captured, 

 and the best for sea-trout was 1871, when 544 were taken. The total 

 number of salmon and sea-trout caught in these 10 years was 303 of the 

 former, and 1612 of the latter. But in one of these years the salmon 

 were not registered, and in another the sea-trout. Taking, however, the 

 returns as they stand^ they give a yearly average of 30 salmon and 161 

 sea-trout, certainly a splendid average for so small a river. 



The Laxay. 



The day after inspecting the Gress and Tong, I drove to Soval 

 Shooting Lodge, 8 miles south from Stornoway, and, along with the 

 keeper, carefully examined the Laxay from Loch Trealaval to the sea, a 

 distance of about 4 miles. After the Grimersta and the Blackwater, the 

 Laxay is the most productive salmon river in the Lews. In the best year 

 he remembered, the keeper told me, that 145 salmon and 639 sea-trout 

 had been taken in it and in Loch Laxay through which it flows ; an 

 average year would yield 100 salmon and 400 sea- trout. About half the 

 salmon are generally captured in Loch Laxay which is a little more than a 

 mile from the sea. Twelve salmon have been taken in a day out of this 

 loch by two rods. There are some fine pools botween Loch Laxay and 

 Loch Trealaval, especially the Ladies pool, which is the best on the river. 

 J^ear the exit of the Laxay from Loch Trealaval, a sort of dam has been 

 erected in which there is an opening a few feet wide ; and when the 

 salmon and sea-trout begin to ascend from the sea this opening is closed 

 by an iron heck or grating, in order to confine the fish to the 4 miles of 

 the river below and to Loch Laxay. The fountain head of the Laxay is 

 not far from the uppermost Grimersta Loch and from the great reservoir 

 of Loch Langavat, whose waters are discharged into Loch Roag through 

 the Grimersta River. There are upwards of 20 lochs belonging to the 

 basin of the Laxay, and when these are once filled with water the river 

 remains in good fishing ply for a long period. Of these lochs, Loch 

 Trealaval is the largest and most remarkable. For, though it is only about 

 4 miles long, its deeply indented and irregular shores must give it a cir- 

 cumference of probably not less than 20 miles. In these respects Loch 

 Scadoway in North Uist is the only fresh- water loch I know, that can 

 compare with it. It is thus described by an accomplished sportsman, 

 who had 20 years' experience of the rivers and lochs of the Lews : — 



Trealaval is a beautiful fresh water loch, shaped something like a star with 

 numerous bays and outlets, or rather inlets for burns. It was some 3 or 4 miles 

 long, but how many round I never could make out ; for it was almost impos- 

 sible to get round it, unless one knew the particular fords to cross the different 

 streams that ran into it. 



I find from returns sent me of the fishings on the Laxay, extending over 

 9 years, that the best year, 1883, produced 145 salmon and 636 sea-trout, 

 while the poorest, 1880, was 10 salmon and 349 sea-trout. The annual 

 average of the 9 years is 77 salmon and 327 sea-trout. 



Loch Orosay. 



Within the limits of the shootings attached to Stornoway Castle, there 

 is a considerable loch termed Loch Orosay, or Loch Airidh Sideach on 

 the Ordnance Map. This loch is not above a mile and a half from the 



