close-time to be fixed by said commissioners, shall not in any case consist of less than one hundred and thirty-nine free consecutive days. Provision is also made for an alteration, on application and evidence as before, of any such legalized close-time, after the expiration of three years; all expenses incurred by the commissioners in taking evidence, or in other matters connected with the subject, to be defrayed by the proprietors. Permission may also be granted in favour of angling with the single rod, for fourteen days after the close. This bill, which we suspect it would have been difficult to work conveniently, was likewise laid upon the shelf. Although, as we have said, salmon soonest ascend the warmest rivers, they are alleged to spawn earliest in the colder ones. Thus Mr Scrope informs us, that in the shallow mountain streams which pour into the Tay, near its source, the fish spawn much earlier than those in the main bed of that magnificent river, and he quotes the following sentiments of the late John Crerar, head fisherman and forester to the Duke of Athole, on the subject:-- "There are," said John, "two kinds of creatures that I am well acquainted with--the one a land animal, the other a water one--the red-deer and the salmon. In October the deer ruts, and the salmon spawns. The deer begins soonest, high up among the hills, particularly in frosty weather; so does the salmon begin to spawn earlier in frosty weather than in soft. The master hart would keep all the other harts from the hind, if he could; and the male salmon would keep all the other males from the female, if he was able."--P. 60.