It was a great drawback in former years at Stormontfield, during the hatching seasons, that many fish were caught with their eggs not sufficiently matured, and which could not be used in consequence. To remedy this, a plan has been adopted of keeping all the salmon that are caught, if they be so nearly ripe for spawning as to warrant their detention. These are confined in the mill-race till they become thoroughly ready for the manipulator, and are kept within bounds by strong iron gratings, placed about 100 yards from each other. These gravid fish are taken out as they are required, or rather as they ripen, by means of a small sweep-net, and it is noteworthy that the animals, after being once or twice fished for, become very cunning, and hide themselves in such bottom holes as they can discover, in order that the net may pass over them. I have no doubt that the Stormontfield mill-race forms an excellent temporary feeding-place for these fish, as its banks are well overhung with vegetation, and its waters are clear as crystal, and of good flavour. It is a decided convenience to be able thus to store the egg-and-milt-producing fish till they are wanted, and will render the annual filling of the breeding-boxes a certainty, which, even under the old two-year system, was not so, in consequence of floods on the river Tay, and from many other causes besides. The latest has been the best spawning season experienced since the commencement of the Stormontfield artificial spawning operations. On the 22d of December (1865) I found that Peter Marshall, the resident pisciculturist, had up to that date deposited in the breeding-boxes more than 300,000 salmon eggs, and that he still had three adult fish to spawn, from which he calculated upon obtaining something like 50,000 additional eggs, and he told me that that number would complete the total quantity required that season—viz. 350,000; indeed, the boxes cannot conveniently hold many more, although another row has been constructed. Upwards of a million of pond-bred fish have now been thrown into the river Tay, and the result has been a satisfactory rise in the salmon-rental of that magnificent stream. I have compiled the following summary of what has been achieved in salmon-breeding at the Stormontfield ponds:—