This  question  is  dealt  with  in  the  Report  of  the  Edinburgh
Committee,  and  dismissed  with  the  remark  that  "  there  is
absolutely  no  evidence  that,  once  having  fairly  entered  the
river,  they  ever  return  to  the  sea  in  any  considerable  number."*
Now  it  happens  that,  since  this  report  was  published  (in  1898),
I  have  received  evidence,  which  can  hardly  be  misinterpreted,
to  the  effect  that  considerable  numbers  of  the  early  running
fish  do  return  to  the  sea  before  spawning.  In  January,  1 900,
I  became  joint-tenant  with  five  others  of  the  whole  of  the  net
and  rod  fishings  of  the  Cree  and  its  tributary  the  Minnick,
rivers  of  Western  Galloway  debouching  into  Wigtown  Bay.
All  nets  were  removed  from  the  inland  and  tidal  waters,  and
the  rivers  were  reserved  exclusively  for  angling.  By  the
beginning  of  July  in  that  year  a  large  number  of  salmon  and
grilse  had  run  up  to  the  upper  reaches.  In  one  short  portion
of  the  Minnick,  so  small  in  volume  and  so  far  away  in  the
moors  that  it  is  seldom  fished,  one  of  our  watchers  counted
1 20  fish,  many  of  them  salmon  of  7  Ib.  to  12  lb.,  which  had  run
up  in  April  and  May,  and  had  become  dark  and  discoloured.
Early  in  July  there  was  a  heavy  spate  ;  when  it  subsided,  the
watcher  missed  his  fish.  They  had  not  run  further  up,  because
above  that  point  the  river  consists  of  a  mere  confluence  of
burns  and  becks,  where  the  presence  of  fish  would  have  been
easily  detected  ;  so  he  set  down  their  disappearance  to  poachers..
*  Life- History  of  the  Salmon ,  p.  76.
