310 Appendices to Fourth Annual Report 



river are said to rise more freely than those in the Laggan, and I was 

 told by an old keeper that he had known, some years ago, 8 salmon 

 taken by a single roil and several lost. There is a tweed mill about two 

 miles from the mouth of the Sorn, and there is a waterfall just above the 

 mill which has been blasted with a view of letting the fish up. But the 

 channel made is too narrow and is much encumbered with sharp blocks of 

 stone. It is also too steep and has too much white water in it. There 

 is, however, a narrow natural channel on the right bank of the stream 

 which might be widened and deepened so that fish would be able to pass 

 up ; or, a still more elfectual plan would be to build a subsidiary dam of 

 concrete across the river just above the bridge. This should be 2J or 3 

 feet high. There is a heck on the intake-lade leading to this mill ; but 

 none on the tail-lade. 



Loch Guirm. 



Loch Guirm, as already mentioned, is the largest sheet of fresh water in 

 Islay, and is connected with the sea by a large burn or small river, which 

 falls into Saligo Bay, on the west side of the island, after a course of about 

 a mile and a half. I drove 7 miles, from Bridgend Hotel, to inspect it 

 and the stream flowing out of it. The loch is 4 miles in circumference, 

 and is in general shallow, the deepest part not exceeding 9 feet. It has 

 a sandy bottom, and in stormy weather this sand is stirred up so as to 

 make it almost unfishable. The day I inspected it, the water was like 

 pea-soup, there having been a good deal of wind aad rain previously. It 

 contains very fine red-fleshed trout from 2 lbs. downwards. A little 

 above Loch Guirm, and connected with it by a large burn, there is a 

 beautiful little lake, called Loch-a-Chor, which also contains trout of good 

 quality. In old days, both Loch Guirm and the stream that flows from 

 it are said to have contained abundance of salmon. Now, they are salmon- 

 less j and I was told the following story by a native of the island con- 

 cerning the cause of their sterility. Long ago, in the days of St Patrick, 

 both stream and loch abounded in salmon, and a fisherman had promised 

 the Saint the first salmon he caught in the former. But the first fish 

 turned out to be a big one, and the fisherman thought it too good for the 

 Saint, so he determined to keep it for himself, and give the Saint the 

 next one. The second, however, was even bigger than the first, and the 

 fisherman could not make up his mind to part with it ; so he thought he 

 would give the Saint the third fish. This proved to be an eel, which he 

 presented to the Saint, who, naturally indignant at the slippery trick 

 played upon him, declared that in all time to come no salmon should be 

 found in the stream. I was not told why St Patrick cursed the un- 

 offending waters instead of the offending fisherman. Possibly he lost 

 his temper, as even holy men have done before and since. But to be 

 promised a salmon and to be put off w^ith an eel was enough to try the 

 patience even of a Saint. I do not know whether the above story appears 

 in the Acta Sanctorum. But I give it as it was told by the son of a 

 local gamekeeper who accompanied me as guide to Loch Guirm. I was 

 curious to see the stream where the Saint had been so scurvily treated, 

 and I got mv boatman to row me to the foot of the loch, where I landed 

 and followed the course of the stream from the loch to its junction with 

 the sea at Saligo Bay. When I saw it, the loch was quite choked up with 

 a dense growth of weeds a little above the point where the stream issues 

 from it. This thicket of weeds ought to be cleared away. The stream 

 itself is about 1 2 feet wide, and, as it was about 3 feet below its ordinary 

 autumn and winter level when I saw it, there must be plenty of water at 



