8 Appendices to Eighth Annual Report 
With reference to the above, I venture most respectfully to suggest to 
the Board that it would be desirable to bring this matter prominently 
under the notice of the Secretary for Scotland. The opening up of the 
Falls of Tummel would be the greatest experiment in the United King- 
dom in the way of salmonising waters now destitute of salmon, and one 
from which we should probably derive most valuable experience. At 
Ballysodare, in Ireland, salmon were enabled, by skilfully constructed 
ladders, to surmount two waterfalls, each higher and steeper than the 
Falls of Tummel, and a salmon fishery was created where none had 
previously existed, which, a few years after the construction of the 
ladders, yielded 10,000 fish annually. 
Under existing legislation, District Boards can only put a salmon- 
ladder on waterfalls by agreement with the riparian owners to whom the 
Falls belong. If they refuse their consent, the District Board is helpless. 
It has no compulsory powers. The proprietors veto on operations, which 
would vastly augment the value of the upper waters and increase the 
supply of salmon for the public, is absolute and final. There is no appeal. 
And it certainly seems somewhat strange and inconsistent that while in 
England, under the Salmon Fisheries Act of 1873, Boards of Conservators 
have power, under certain conditions and restrictions, to acquire compul 
sorily, in whole or in part, artificial obstructions to the passage of salmon, 
no similar power should be possessed by Scottish District Boards over 
natural obstructions ; although, in consequence of the absence of such a 
power, salmon are absolutely excluded by impassable waterfalls, from 
about 500 miles of rivers and from many thousand acres of lochs. 
The land- In m Y l ast Report to the Board, I stated that I had applied to Colonel 
locked salmon. Marshall Macdonald, the head of the United States Fisheries Commission, 
to ascertain whether he would send over to this country a supply of 
impregnated ova of the land-locked salmon. He complied with my 
request in the handsomest and most liberal manner, and forwarded a con- 
signment of 25,000 ova which arrived in this country with very trifling 
loss, and were deposited in hatching-trays at Taymouth Castle in February 
1889. Since then, I have been informed that there are thousands of 
young fry, from 1 to 3 inches long, quite healthy and lively, in a pond 
which has been made for them in the park at Taymouth. It is to be 
hoped that these fry may be the means of introducing this game and 
handsome fish into some of our Scotch Lochs. 
When in Aberdeen, for the purpose of meeting the clerks to the Dee and 
Don District Boards on the subject of the illicit traffic in salmon, I took 
the opportunity of inspecting the dams on the Don, described in my first 
Keport to the Board, and was sorry to find that none of their objectionable 
features have been in any way altered or improved ; the dam at Mugie- 
moss, especially, preserving ijs bad eminence as being about the worst 
artificial obstruction in Scotland. The apron of this dam is no less than 
94 feet 6 inches long — a fatal fault, as fish cannot swim so long a current 
of rapid water. When I first visited Mugiemoss the river was so low 
that I could walk across the face or apron of the dam. But when I in- 
spected it in August last, the river was rather high, and the fish-pass on 
the dam was full of white foaming water, which no salmon could ascend ; 
and then, to add to the difficulty, at the top of this foaming torrent, there 
is a jump of about 3 feet before the fish can reach the water above. The 
pass is the very last place in the dam which any ascending fish would 
select. On the left bank of the stream, a good many inches of black water 
Mugiemoss 
Dam on the 
River Don. 
