The Tay salmon-fisheries are owned by various noblemen, gentlemen, and corporations; and they yield a gross annual rent of nearly £17,000. To give an idea of the individual value and the occasional fluctuations of even the best fisheries, we may cite some of the figures connected with the rental of the river Tay. Lord Gray, for instance, has drawn from his fisheries more than £100,000 during the last thirty-five years. The salmon and grilse obtained for this sum run from 10,000 to 28,000 a year. It has been frequently asserted that our salmon-fisheries are a lottery, and in confirmation of this it may be stated that in 1831, when 10,000 fish were taken, the rental of this fishery was £4000; and that in 1842, when the capture was 28,453 fish, the rental was £1000 less. Dividing the income for the two years, we have the following result:—Averaging the fish at 5s. each gives as a loss to the tenant on the 10,000 year of £1500, while on the other year there is the large profit of £4000! But the value of the Tay fisheries will be better estimated by mentioning that in some seasons the number of fish taken from the mouth of the Isla down to the sea has ranged from 70,000 to upwards of 100,000. Ten of the fishing-stations between Perth and Newburgh used to produce an annual rental of about (on the average) £700 each. As to the much-discussed stake-net question, the following figures may be quoted:—About the end of last century, _before_ the existence of stake-nets, the average number of fish taken at the Kinfauns fishery was—salmon, 8720; grilse, 1714. In the first ten years of the present century, the average annual catch of salmon fell to 4666, and the grilse numbered 1616. _After_ the stake-nets were removed, and in the ten years from 1815 to 1824, the average number of salmon caught was 9010 per annum, and of grilse 8709. I have purposely avoided filling up my space with an accumulation of proof on this point, but were further proof required of the deadly influence of stake and bag nets on the salmon rivers, it could easily be had; indeed, ample testimony has, from time to time, been recorded in Parliament, both against the stake-nets, and that “chamber of horrors” for the salmon, the deadly bag. A stream like the Tay ought to have a stock of breeding-fish sufficient to produce more than 100,000,000 of eggs, because the destruction of the spawn and the young fish is so enormous as to require provision for a large amount of waste; hence the value of artificial cultivation. By the natural system of spawning it is supposed that only one egg in each thousand comes to the fisherman’s net as a twenty-five pound fish. The river Spey is an excellent salmon-producing stream; in fact, size considered, it is the richest in Scotland, the fishings at Speymouth being worth £12,000 per annum. The Spey is about a hundred and twenty miles on its course before it falls into the sea, and some parts of the river are very picturesque.