The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-08-22

the red deer, nave prOspefSA LIEOu6A the reform. These game-birds and beasts require water, and plenty of it; but, as far as can be made out, theey had rather too much in the original state of nature, and they do not. as rule, seem to have too little now. On the other hand, the fish of the rivers in the valleys have fared otherwise The waters are very unstable in vol ume. They rise to leevels much higher, and fall to leevels much lower than they ever reached in the days when rain over the vast watersheds had 10 find it's own way toward them. In the | old times each storm of rain, the water Altering slowly, kept the rivers in fair flow until the next; nowadays, through the drains, the water is carried off al- most as quickly as it falls, and there is no reserve for the periods of fair weather.
 ! On the salmon rivers, as on the trout | streams, the results have been rather | serious. The commercial fisheries have not suffered much, if at all; but that is i probably because these are in the estu- aries, which, at least when the tide is not in full ebb, are kept in normal vol ume by the sea. Sportsmen are not so well off as the professional fishers. 1 They may become tenants of well rePu-
 ted stretches for a month or two months, or even three, either in spring or in autumn; but they cannot be sure l that salmon will be in the waters. or | that if the fish are there the waters will be of the proper, which is the nat
 uraI, height. Even in the British Is- lands the meteorological influences over 1 which are peculiarly complex, weather has a certain periodicity, and we have phrases such as ''the Lammas Flood"
 which indicate that rain storms at sta- ted times are as much to be expected as
 frosts at others, but the periodicity is subject to frequent exceptions. Last I year, for example, saving over part of Argylh hire, Scotland had no con-
 siderable >'ain after the beginning of I August. The result was disappoint- nent on all the salmon rivers. Some theld a few. fish, but these had been so long in the water that they would not
 look at flies. and were chary even of I prawns.
 Tn other rivers the salmon were not
 higher than the estuaries, waiting for the floods which did not come until af-
 ter the close of the season. While "too
 little water" is a frequent complaint
 among the sportsmen, too much is not
 unheard of. Theere Is eearly always
 an excess after heavy rain. Certain
 rivers, of which the Fay is an example,
 are so broad that they can be fished
 effectively only from a boat and even
 with a pair of stalWart Highland gillies
 at the oars, a boat cannot hold it's own
 against the torrent which now follows
 moderate rain. Besides, although as
 has been admitted, the net fisheries
 seem to be as productive as ever, it is
 not unreasonable to suppose that inter
 ference with the order of nature in the
 rivers must eventually, if measures to
 neutralize it are not taken, reduce the
 stock of fish. Spent salmon are readi-
 ly susceptible to the contagion of ''sa-
 proleegnia ferax;" often when the
 spring rains are dilatory, their depar-
 ture to the sea is delayed; every unnat-
 ural hour they spend in the fresh water is an extra risk not only to themselves but also to the whole stock of their
 particular river.
 The measures which are being taken
 on the Thuro have every prospect of success. They are, as has been said, ar
 experiment; but they are not without
 precedent. The plan of artificial stor- , age has been applied to two small riv- CTS in the neighborhood of the Thurso
 and has quite fulfilled expectations When storage was under discussion as a theory certain naturalists contempla'
 ted it without much hope. They req Soned that flood from reservoir . was not the same thing as a flood iron : the clouds; that fresh rain water wa!
 highly aerated, and stored water not a , all; that man might bring water to thu salmon, but could not make him run O
 rise. Atnospherical conditions beeint well known to have great influence ol fish of the salmon kind, these thought l had cogency, but happily they hav
 proved pessimistic. Sir Herbert Max 3 we'll and others after sufficient tria l, have publicly testified that on the tw'
 small rivers to which I have referrel n l artificial storage IS SucceSStul' ATte all, it is an attempt to redress the bal
 ance of nature in a very natural way
 It stands to reason that most of tn
 water which is now rushed to the se in raging floods is waste. The volum U is much more than any natural need II of the rivers calm. Why should not tn ! excess be kept for the rainless day???
 When one comes to think of it, ther
 is nothing unnaturalf1 and, therefore
 nothing unscientific in the plan. It
 only an attempt to restore thee river to their original state. The preserve y water may be little lacking in aera
 tion; but it cannot be more so than tn q mounatins through bogs and peat mos: q Of course the system which is about 1t be applied to the Thurso can never b s equal to the system of nature befor - the lands were drained. To be of us ,- for the whole of a river, the reservoi n must be near the source. It will gath II CT only small fraction of the rain O - the whole watershed. Still it will gath S CT enough to be very useful in times ( :. drought. Indeed, the system will be l. triumph if by means of it the salmo B. can be enticed to run into the rivers a t | times of year when they are due an