and on the Salmon Fisheries, 
m 
come down in the month of March from the high lands. You will see them go 
down in shoals. The he fish always seeks his way down immediately after he 
spawns ; but you will scarcely get a she kelt early in the season. You will get the 
she fish coming down in the months of March and April, great numbers of them ; 
and you will scarcely get one he fish so late as that month ; all the bo's are coming 
down chiefly in the month of February,” p., 139. Mr Johnstone declares, that the 
kelts ‘‘ are found during the months of January, February, March, and April ; and 
I believe some are found in May, but they get very scarce then,” p. 36. Mr Little 
says, that, after spawning, “ they remain a little time near the place, and then re- 
turn again to the sea.” With regard to the time they remain, he says, “ that de- 
pends a good deal upon the season, whether it is a dry or a wet season ; if it is dry 
weather they remain longer ; but if it is wet weather, they soon go down to the 
sea,” p. 108. 
In the course of their descent to the sea, they experience interruptions from 
cruives and dam-dikes ; but, when arrived at the place where the tide meets the 
river, they seem to pursue the deepest part of the channel or stream, and escape 
all the coble-nets and stake-nets of the estuaries and sea-shore. In reference to the 
stake-nets capturing kelts, Mr Bell declares they do not,” p. 29. Mr Johnstone 
says of the stake-nets, ‘‘ very few were ever caught in them and gives as the rea- 
son, “ the kelts in the river are in a much narrower compass, and so are more 
subject to capture : they are seeking their way down to the sea, and generally pre- 
fer deep water ; the water on the banks on which the stake-nets stood was very 
shallow ; and generally by the time the fish came down so far from the river, the 
banks were getting dry by the tide leaving them. When the fish meet the flowing 
tide, they generally stop, the current being strong ; the surf or agitation of the wa- 
ter, in the shallow waters on the banks of the friths, must also keep a weak, un- 
healthy fish like a kelt, from venturing on the banks ; when it has not strength 
like a sound fish ; the deep water is more suitable. I have often found them driven 
on shore dead, when they ventured on the banks ; they were thus very seldom 
caught in the stake-nets, because they were seldom wdthin reach f whereas in the 
river they had no means of escape,” p. 43. Mr Halliday, in reference to the stake- 
nets of the Tay, declares, “ I have fished some seasons, aud have not seen above 
two kelts the whole season in the stake-nets.” — I have not seen a single kelt in 
them ail some seasons.”— Kelts do not generally resort to that particular part of 
the shore,” p. 69. Mr Shepherd declares, that, during his survey of the river fish- 
ing in 1 809, diuing the stake-net process in the Tay, he has seen foul fish taken in 
April, in the river fishings, but in the stake-nets “ never but one,” p. 102. 
The station in the sea to ivhich the kelts resort, yet remains to be dis- 
covered. Sir H. Davy says, “ Salmon do not go far out to sea p. 145. 
How he has gained this information does not appear. Not surely from the 
proprietors of stake- nets on the sea-shore, for salmon seldom enter there, but 
from May to September ; — not surely from cod and haddock fishers, for the 
bait which allures these fish tempts not the salmon. William Bell thinks 
that the fish that enter rivers from the sea “ come from the north,” (p. 33.) ; 
the very place, we may add, whence the older naturalists brought the her- 
rings. 
To return to the spawning-bed^ we are compelled to record the injuries 
which it must sustain by the present practice of fishing. Mr Halliday, in re- 
