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Appendices to Fourth Annual Report 



best be enabled to reach the loch above by means of the lade. Of course a 

 grating would require to be placed between the sluice and the mill wheel, 

 in order to prevent the fish from going the wrong way. The sluice 

 should be put on the left bank of the lade at a point where there is at 

 present a wooden trough through which the water in the channel of the 

 lade passes. At the mouth of the stream running out of this loch, one of 

 the lintels supporting the arch through which the water passes towards 

 the sea has been thrown down by the force of the waves, and so the 

 passage is very much choked up. There is said to be a third mill at 

 Dusary where the entrance to the loch above is barred against migratory 

 fish by the way in which the mill is worked. 



The sea-trout in the lochs on the western side of North Uist seem to 

 be of even a larger size than those in the Park Lochs in the Lews, or 

 those in the Forest Lochs in North Harris, as Sherifi" Webster told me that 

 he had once killed in Loch-nan-Clachan, 15 sea-trout weighing 49 lbs., and 

 in Loch Horisay, 7 sea-trout weighing 48J lbs. ; the former gives an 

 average of Z\ lbs., and the latter an average of nearly 7 lbs. per fish — 

 certainly a remarkable, and so far as I know, an unparalleled average for 

 sea-trout. 



Loch Caravat. 



On the 2nd July I drove to Store at the head of Loch Eport, where 

 there is a kelp manufactory, passing by the way a loch which is said to 

 contain a peculiar striped variety of trout. We tried it with fly, but were 

 not able to obtain any specimens. This loch communicates with the sea 

 by a short burn up which trout could easily ascend if they were not 

 prevented from doing so by stones placed at the mouth for poaching 

 purposes. At Loch Eport, we procured a sailing boat and sailed down 

 the loch for 7 miles, finding the wind very squally, especially off Eval, 

 the highest mountain in the island. On landing we walked across the 

 moor to Loch Caravat^ the prettiest loch in North Uist, and what is 

 singular in this country of shallow waters, a very deep loch. It has a 

 fine rocky or gravelly bottom for the most part. The banks are every- 

 where steep and in many places perpendicular. The shores shelve in 

 gradually for a few yards from the edge of the loch, and then dip down 

 at once into very deep water. This would be an admirable loch for tr3?ing 

 the land-locked salmon. There is a large expanse of water, great depth, 

 and a fine clean bottom. There are several islands on this loch partially 

 wooded by mountain ash trees, and some of them covered with ferns, the 

 Osmunda regalis, or royal fern, being quite common. The foot of the loch 

 communicates with the sea by a short broad burn. But this is entirely 

 barred, and the upward progress of salmon and sea-trout prevented by an 

 elaborate arrangement of rough stone-work, put up by the poachers of a 

 former generation, for the purpose of intercepting the fish on their way to 

 the loch. A passage would require to be cleared through this in order to 

 enable fish to get up. A couple of days' work of two men with levers 

 would clear a way through the stones to the sea. There is a deep pool of 

 salt water close to the mouth of the burn, left by the receding tide. This 

 must contain sea-trout in autumn, at the proper state of the tide. 



Sheriff Webster mentioned to me a remarkable circumstance with re- 

 gard to the run of salmon in North Uist. He says, that the true salmon 

 {sal7no salar), comes up from the Minch and enters the lochs — such as 

 Loch-na-Ciste — communicating with the Minch ; but that no salmon, so 

 far as he knows, has ever been taken in the lochs that communicate with 

 the Atlantic. On the other hand, salmon came up from the Atlantic into 



