58 
Appendices to Eighth Annual Report 
a perpendicular height of at least 10 feet, with a very steep gradient or 
slope. There is no fish-pass on it, nor is it necessary that there should 
be one, as it is a cruive dike. But, except in very high water, it is a 
great obstruction to the upward progress of fish. It is not constructed 
and worked in terms of the Bye-law in many respects ; and here it should 
be remembered that cruives being in the character of monoplies, all the 
provisions of the Bye-law regulating them must be viewed as strict issimi 
juris, that is to say, they must be carried out to the very letter. 
The cruive box at Dupplin is 15 feet long by 10 feet in width. The 
gradient of the apron below sill is 1 in 14. On the down stream side of 
the upper hecks there are four wooden posts, each 5 inches square, placed 
at irregular intervals, which I think are illegal, and most decidedly inter- 
fere with the ascent of salmon, even when the hecks are removed, and 
the inscales removed or kept open for the space of 4 feet ; the intention 
of the Bye-law clearly being that, during the annual and weekly close 
times, the cruive should present no obstruction whatever to the upward 
progress of fish. The following sketch, for which I am indebted to Mr 
James Ritchie, C.E., Perth, will show the position of these posts, and the 
spaces between them. 
rr~a-xr~ "trtri 
lb" m~ 2'9i" I3i" IV 
P 
The upper hecks, though 3 inches apart, are not bevelled off ^as directed 
in the Bye-law, and are 6 inches in the up and down way of the stream, 
and inches thick, instead of, as directed in the Bye-law, 1 not more 
' than 2 inches thick, and not more than 4 inches broad in the up and 
' down way of the stream.' The opening between the extremities of the 
inscales was 1 inches, and the space between the bars of the inscales 
varied from If to the statutory 2 inches. 
I am pleased to be able to say that the factor and agent of Lord 
Kinnoul, when this was pointed out to them, at once intimated their 
willingness to have the cruive altered so as to be in conformity with the 
provisions of the Bye-law. 
It was stated to me, on my first visit to the Earn, when the river was 
too high to admit of my inspecting the Dupplin cruive, that the cruive 
dike had been heightened 2 feet in defiance of the provisions of the 
Bye-law, the last section of which provides that 1 no cruive shall be so 
1 altered as to create a greater obstruction to the free passage of fish than 
4 at present exists.' The date of that Bye-law is 19th July 1865; and 
the head keeper at Dupplin, who has been there for thirty-five years, 
most distinctly declares that the dike has never been heightened in his 
time.* 
There is another cruive on the Earn, above Dupplin, at Strathallan, 
about 6 miles below Crieff, which is a very serious obstruction to the 
passage of salmon ; and, still further up, there is the dam at Dornoch, 
where Lord Willoughby has a right to cruive fishing. But he has in the 
* Since writing the above, I have received from Messrs Condie & Co., writers, 
Perth, the precognitions of James Irvine, head keeper, Dupplin, and of David 
Taylor, contractor, Perth, to the effect that, though Dupplin dike has been more 
than once restored in part, since the date of the Bye-law (Schedule F), in order to 
repair the damage done l>y floods, it has never been heightened, hut always kept at 
the same level. 
