52 
Appendices to Tenth Annual Report 
bone, tenant of Barcaldine, as many as 1500 or thereabouts near the boat- 
house, and I have heard that a large quantity of very small oysters were 
thrown up on the beach near the same place during a very severe storm. 
There has never been any strict preservation of shell-fish in Loch Creran, 
and owing to this, parties were in the habit of taking, either for their own 
use or for sale, oysters and other shell-fish as they might find them, and this 
continues up to the present time. 
Along the shore and within the limits of the proposed Order at various places 
there are mussel-scalps, particularly between Culnaline Burn and the Taile 
River, also off Rhugarbh, and near and about the head of the Loch. 
• Several times within my recollection have East Coast fishing boats come into 
the Loch for mussels for bait. 
Mr Campbell Ogilvie, with a view to improving the oyster fishing, employed a 
man to lay down tiles between the boat-house and the mouth of the River 
Taile, as an experiment to ascertain how they would stand the lash of the tide, 
and especially with a view of testing the adaptability of a scheme of his own of 
catching oyster spat. 
In a general way I am acquainted with Mr Anderson Smith's operations in 
connection with his attempted oyster rearing. But as I understand that a 
letter from Mr Smith to Mr Young, on the subject of the shell-fishings in Loch 
Creran, is printed in a Report by Mr Young to the Fishery Board, on the Oyster 
and Mussel Fishings on the West Coast of Scotland from Loch Ryan to the 
Island of Mull, I cannot pretend to add anything to information which he is 
more competent to give ; only I reckon it unfortunate that his work stopped 
at the point at which it did. 
I am still hopeful that oyster rearing may succeed in Loch Creran if it will 
in any of our western lochs. 
Knowing that Mrs Ogilvie means to make the attempt to rear oysters and to 
cultivate mussels on the most approved methods, and to protect them efficiently, 
I venture to hope the Fishery Board will afford her every facility for carry- 
ing out her intentions. 
There are a good many dog- whelks and star-fish, but not in so great numbers 
as to interfere seriously with the cultivation of oysters, if ordinary means are 
taken to get rid of them. 
Donald Clark made the following statement : — 
Donald Clark, presently living at the smithy croft, Barcaldine : — I was born 
upon the estate and I have lived on the Loch side all my life, excepting a 
few years off and on when I was away at service. 
I was in use to lift the oysters from the shore many years ago. I have mind 
of being home when Blair, about whom Mr Sutherland speaks, was in the 
Loch, but I never sold any oysters to him. 
Ever since I remember there were plenty oysters in the Loch, but they got 
much scarcer after Blair was there. Carmichael the old gamekeeper and 
myself were going out sometimes in the boat for Mr Rathbone,* and we used to 
get plenty for the house as they were wanted. 
At that time the best place was at the slate quarry, and the east side of the 
boat-house near the Taile. I, along with three ladies from the Barcaldine 
House, picked up 1500 on the shore in one tide. That was about 15 years 
ago. 
I started work with Mr Anderson Smith, when he came here about 13 
years ago, and it was I who showed him over the shore before he took the 
fishings. 
We used to collect in a tide about 200 to 400 according to the weather and 
the tide, and alone I have got 300 many a time for him. 
We used to take them up with the grape and pick them off the rocks and 
the shore. 
There was a mussel-bed at Dalranach when I was a boy, but it has dis- 
appeared. The people used the bait. 
The people about and from other places have always been taking oysters 
and they have never been much stopped. 
* Mr Rathbone was then tenant of Barcaldine. 
