Mr. Buist has favoured me with the following notes, which were compiled from his day-books at an early stage of the Stormontfield experiments:— “1. Of the marked fish which were liberated from the pond at Stormontfield, four out of every hundred were recaptured, either as grilse or salmon. “2. We find that more than 300,000 fish were reared in the pond, and allowed to go into the Tay. Thus forty fish out of every thousand were recaptured; and as 300,000 were in all liberated, it follows that 12,000 of the salmon taken in the Tay were pond-bred fish. But as the fish did not all go away in one year, this 12,000 must be distributed over two years. “3. We find the average number of salmon and grilse taken in each year is 70,000. It follows, then, if there be any truth in figures, that nearly one-tenth of the fish taken in the Tay for the last two years were artificially bred. This is equivalent to a rise of 10 per cent in the rental of the fishings; and such we find is the result. “It may be urged that if the salmon from which the ova were taken had been left at liberty, the result would have been the same; but this we know could not have been the case, for, according to a careful calculation made by Mr. Thomas Tod Stoddart and others, each pair of salmon, although they produce upon an average 30,000 eggs, do not rear above five fish. Three female fish, if every egg they deposit was to produce a salmon, would produce all the fish in the Tay. When left in their natural state, 30,000 ova produce four or five fish fit for the table; whereas the same number of ova, when carefully protected in the breeding-ponds, produce about 800. This is supposing that one-third of the ova deposited in the boxes perishes—does not hatch, and comes to nothing. Therefore the increase in the number of salmon taken within the last year is accounted for. Had there been any increase in the number of fish in the other rivers of Scotland, doubts might arise; but there has been no such increase, last year being a bad one for every river in Scotland with the exception of the Tay.”