320 



Appendices to Fourth Annual Report 



habit of the Penobscot sahiion to spawn every second year. Had any con- 

 siderable number of them recovered condition in season to return to the river 

 for spawning the year after their first capture, they would hardly have 

 escaped detection altogether ; indeed, they would have been much more likely 

 to retain their tags, since they would have borne them only six or seven 

 months, instead of eighteen or nineteen. This view is further supported by 

 what we know of the reduced condition in which the end of the spawning 

 season finds the salmon, the short time, only six months, that intervenes 

 between the spawning season and the time for the next ' run ' up the river, 

 the low temperature then prevailing in the river and bay, and the fact, which 

 is pretty well established, that a large part, perhaps nearly all the salmon, 

 instead of proceeding at once to sea after spawning, linger in the fresh water 

 all the winter, and descend only with the spring floods. 



NOTE IV., APPENDIX G. 



The follomng Memorandum on the Loch Torridon rivers, supplementary 

 to that published by me in my Third Annual Report to the Board (pages 136 

 to 140) was sent me by Mr Darroch of Torridon in August last. It is now 

 printed as completing his evidence with regard to these rivers. 



SUPPLEMENTARY MEMORANDUM on LOCH TORRIDON 

 RIVERS, ROSS-SHIRE. 



In my Memorandum printed by you on page 136 of your report for 1884, 

 I endeavoured to prove that the fixed nets inside Loch Torridon were the 

 cause of our river fishing being ruined, and I expressed an opinion that the 

 stock of salmon was nearly exhausted by them. On the 11th August 1885 

 my keeper went with a stranger to show him the Balgy, and was agreeably 

 surprised to see salmon again jumping at the falls. 



On the 15th I went myself to inspect, and found that salmon were jumping 

 away as we had not seen them do for many years. I saw two large ones get 

 right up the fall. 



At first sight, it seemed as if I had been mistaken as to the fact of the nets 

 intercepting our fish, but from information received I yesterday went down to 

 Craig, the place where our enemies the bag nets begin. 



I found there all the nets ashore, and ascertained from the man in charge 

 that as they were not getting enough fish to pay, t'ley had, acting on instruc • 

 tions from headquarters, taken up all the nets on 3rd August, and that the 

 season had been a failure. 



This seems to prove : — First, that the capital stock of fish has been, as I 

 asserted, so reduced by the perpetual netting inside the natural estuary as to 

 be practically extinct for commercial purposes ; second, that directly the inter- 

 cepting nets are removed, the few fish that remain at once rush up to their 

 native spawning ground in our rivers. 



(Signed) Duncan Darroch. 



Torridon, 21si August 1885. 



