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Appendices to Twenty -eighth Annual Report 



doubt do drop back in the river. Our marking has shown this to 

 some extent, and it is the experience of netsmen who fish near the 

 mouths of rivers that after floods they frequently catch coloured fish 

 which have certainty been in the fresh water. On the other hand, 

 there is no evidence to show that the upper water fish of such rivers 

 as the Tay or the Inverness-shire Garry, or the Orchy, or the Dee, 

 ever drop back till they have spawned in the autumn. In the Garry 

 the evidence is strengthened by the fact, as it appears, that no autumn 

 fish run the river at all, and that the spawn ers of the upper streams 

 — the Kingie and Quoich — must therefore be the fish which entered 

 the lower Garry in spring. The conditions present in certain rivers 

 may tend to make fish drop back more than is certainly the case in 

 other localities. 



Be this as it may, it is clear that even if fish do drop out of a river, 

 and take up their abode in the sea once more before spawning, this 

 onty further strengthens the argument which I am endeavouring to 

 enforce, viz., that the protection of the fish which enter our rivers to 

 spawn is of far greater importance than was previously supposed, 

 and that the proper regulation of such netting as is still conducted 

 so as to catch fish which are making for their spawning grounds in 

 fresh water is all-important. 



W. L. Calderwood. 



