UC-NRLF 
 
 1 llllll 
 
 $B 271 7 
 
 07 
 
 
 
 mm 
 
 
 
 
mk^ 
 
 ^^ 
 
 :-P:t: 
 
■«■«:■■- 
 
 '•■'■XC. 
 
 ^i^U^ 
 
 »^- •;,..<•; 
 
 
 ^ :.%;<» 
 
/^ 
 
 // 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/fishfishinginlonOOknoxrich 
 

 WITH A. HISTORY OF THB 
 
 Propagation, Growth, and Metanaorj^Jioses of the Salmon 
 
 ®Y ®1^ 
 
 LONDON: G. ROUTLEDGE & CO., FARRINGDON STREET. 
 
 NEW Y0RK:*18, BEEKMAN STREET. 
 18M. 
 
"^ I I kiu , 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Kl 
 
 PART I. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Inteodtjction 1 
 
 Chap. I. — the steeams flowing eeom the pentland 
 
 EAKGE. — THE ESK, THE LEITH, AND THE 
 
 AMMOND WATEES 13 
 
 II. — THE TYKE 25 
 
 III. — LOCH LEVEN 34 
 
 IV. THE TSLA; GLEN ISLA 42 
 
 V. LOCH KATEINE; VENACHAE ; GLENFTNLAS . 46 
 
 VI. — THE ATE; THE DOONE ; LOCH DOONE ; THE 
 
 LOCH OE KEN ; ST. MAET's ISLE . . 56 
 VII. — THE NITH AND ITS TEIBUTAEIES . . .65 
 
 VIII. THE ANNAN ; LOCHMABEN ; CASTLE OF EOBEET 
 
 DE BEUS; THE YENGIS . . . .77 
 
 IX. OF THE FISH CALLED PAEE, BEANDLIN, FINGEE- 
 
 LING, &C. 80 
 
 PART II. 
 
 THE TWEED AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. 
 
 Inteodtjction 99 
 
 Chap. I. — eddlestone watee ; the lyne - . . 100 
 
 II, — the tweed FEOM PEEBLES TO INVEELEITHEN 
 
 AND THENCE TO GALASHIELS . . . 102 
 
 .M846874 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Chap. III. — gala watee 105 
 
 IV. THE LEAJ)EB . . . . . . 108 
 
 V. THE WHITADDEE; THE FASTNA . . . 107 
 
 VI. — THE DIE 119 
 
 VII. — THE LOWEE WATEES OF THE WHITADDEE . 121 
 
 VIII. THE TWEED; THE TALLA ; LOCH SKENE . 126 
 
 IX. THE TAEEOW; THE ETTEICK ; ST. MAEY'S 
 
 LOCH; LOCH OP THE LOWS . . . 129 
 
 X. — THE TEYIOT AND THE KALE . . . 131 
 
 XI.— THE TILL AND ITS TEIBTTTAEIES. THE 
 
 BEAUMONT; THE COLLEGE WATEE; THE 
 
 GLEN 133 
 
 XII — THE TWEED 138 
 
 Some eemaeks on the peopagation op the salmon 
 by aetincial means, and on the geowth and 
 metamoephoses of the fey .... 141 
 
FISH AND FISHING 
 
 IN THE 
 
 LONE GLENS OF SCOTLAND. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 INTEODUCTIOI^. 
 
 To-DAT is the first of May. It is mid-day. The sun shines 
 brightly on the smooth and gently flowing Thames, as its waters 
 sweep from Kingston to Eichmond. Half way stands the oak 
 imder which he who sang the " Hymn to the Seasons" sat gazing 
 listlessly on the tranquil stream — emblem of his own mind. So- 
 journing long in a strange land he had adopted it for his own; 
 its scenery, sky, river, people. He had exchanged the banks of 
 the crystal Tweed for the still more placid Thames, and the 
 peaceful highly cultivated vale of Roxburgh for a still more 
 fertile land. They differ but little; and thus, whether on Tweed 
 side or by Thames bank, whether at Roxburgh or Kingston, the 
 bard from Scotland but not of Scotland, was an English poet ; 
 not so immortal Burns : your mind and your country were one. 
 You alone pourtrayed in telling words the scenes of which I am 
 about to speak. Ayr and Doone, Yarrow and Tweed, Annan 
 and Nith, Gala and Ettrick; to the banks of these rivers and 
 streams, and waters, let me lead the angler, and show him what 
 true angling means. 
 
 I sit by Thames bank, but 
 
 "My heart is not here ;"" 
 
2 ■ FISH AND FISHIKG IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 neither is it in "the highlands," which is not a true anghng 
 country, but by the margin of lone and desolate Fastna, or l)y 
 St. Bathan's ruined abbey, or by Chirnside Bridge, tempting 
 with fly and minnow the spotted trout and silvery salmon. 
 Here on Thames bank I see some one sitting in a boat, holding 
 in his hand what resembles a fishing-rod. Do you call this 
 angling ? Yes; it is angling in England. Be it so ; but it bears 
 no resemblance to angling anywhere else. Even Izaak's angling 
 is rather prosy, but compared with this thing in the punt, it was 
 at least refreshing. Old Izaak ! Model angler of a model nation ; 
 I should like to see one of your disciples fish the lone and desolate 
 Fastna, with no resting-place between its eldrid bridge and Elms- 
 ford. How little does he know of angling who has merely fished 
 the preserved streams and ponds of fat and prosperous England. 
 A word on angling in England. I sojourned for a year or two in 
 the south of England, a short way from the muddy banks of the 
 Southampton water, in Hampshire ; where the vine, uncherished 
 by artificial heat, yet yielded tolerable fruit. Some friends, fond 
 of angling for trout, invited me to accompany them to a preserved 
 stream of the river which, descending from Stockbridge, unites at 
 last with the Itchen, thus forming the Southampton water. 
 
 It was a warm autumnal day. My friend drove us in his 
 handsome chariot and pair to the scene of action. From the 
 proprietor of the estate and of the right to fish we had a hearty 
 welcome, and proceeded at once to the banks of the stream. To 
 me the scene was new, although a perusal of " The Complete 
 Angler" had to a certain extent prepared me for it. 
 
 A gently flowing, quiet muddy stream, deeply fringed with 
 sedge, and full to the brink, somewhat like a ditch about to 
 overflow, meandered, if you will, through fat, artificially irrigated 
 meadows. The pasture was knee deep, rank and marshy. Clumps 
 of willows studded the landscape; here and there little wooden 
 bridges crossing the deep irrigating canals, relieve the listless- 
 ness and monotony of the scene. On one of these there sat a 
 reverend pastor of a class of which Paley was the type. He 
 seemed weighty enough to be an archdeacon. A boy carried his 
 angling apparatus and a seat for him to rest occasionally. He 
 was in accordance with the scenery and the scenery with him. 
 
AlfGLING IN ENGLAND. 3 
 
 Our party in the meantime tried boldly for trout, but were un- 
 successful ; nevertheless, it is certain that occasionally some fine 
 trout are caught here, for the rivers of Hampshire are noted for 
 the excellence, if not abundance, of their trout and salmon. 
 
 An esteemed friend, Gr , of the Guards, a Saxon and an 
 
 Englishman, assures me that English anglers must not be 
 despised. They fish "underhand," that is the phrase, and take 
 many hrace of trout, where the overhand northern could take 
 nothing. Very likely they know the temper of their own fish, and"^ 
 the character of their becks and rivers ; the taste and habit of the 
 fish of their own country. And in one respect they have the ad- 
 vantage greatly over most of the northern anglers ; the fish they 
 take, especially in the south of England, are as excellent as those 
 of Scotland are generally worthless. The red-spotted river trout 
 of England, frequenting the fresh water only, is, generally speak- 
 ing, a much finer fish than the species usually met with in the 
 Scottish rivers. The northern is a coarser fish, tasteless, colour- 
 less, or nearly so, in its muscle or flesh ; the trout of the south 
 of England is a handsomer trout, with pink-coloured flesh, and 
 excellent to eat. This does not depend on the food, but mainly 
 on their being specifically distinct. Nevertheless, the pink or 
 pale salmon-coloured trout is also to be met with in many streams 
 of Scotland ; in the Tyne, the water of Leith, the Eden, as I 
 shall afterwards show ; whilst, no doubt, the coarser or Scottish 
 kind is to be also met with in some parts of England, especially 
 in the north. I have always heard that the trout of the Coquet 
 are as worthless as those of the Tweed and its tributaries. But 
 to return. A sumptuous dinner and choice wines awaited our 
 return to the house of our host ; the carriage was ordered about 
 ten, and so we reached home without other fatigue than that of 
 sitting three or four hours over our dinner and wine. 
 
 As I stood on the banks watching the movements of the 
 Vicar, for such he was at the least, on the other side, and of my 
 more active friends on this, I said to myself, "this no more 
 resembles true angling than does yonder swelling upland with 
 its patches of heath the desolate and lonely glens of the Lam- 
 mermuir ; the muddy stream before me, the silver, crystal Tweed; 
 the air I breathe, stagnating over these fat meadows, the honey- 
 
 b2 
 
4t FISH A]S'D PISHI^'G IN^ SCOTLAND. 
 
 wafting, pure, refreshing, exhilarating, life-restoring gale, which 
 blows over Priestlaw on a summer morn." 
 
 Away, then, I said, to the lonely glens and mountain tops of 
 the true angling country, Scotland, in fancy, at least, if not in 
 reality. I will describe, I said, angling in Scotland, as I have 
 experienced it. 
 
 I say this without meaning to disparage English rivers and 
 angling in them. I see, in fact, that, under certain circumstances, 
 some excellent trout are to be caught in rivers, such as I have 
 described. But the angler would, I think, require to be differ- 
 ently equipped, and his materiel more artistically finished than 
 is requisite on Scottish rivers and lakes. There is first the per- 
 mission to be obtained ; next, as to equipment, long waterproof 
 boots, to wade and splash through the marshy meadows ; the 
 finest tackle, a small salmon-rod, with several spare tops ; 
 abundance of live minnows of all sizes, and a choice of flies. 
 The small streams and rivulets called becks, in the north of Eng- 
 land, and no doubt in the south, abound with good trout of at 
 least two kinds. Cautious fishing with worm or minnows, 
 dropped very cunningly just over the bank, is sure to succeed. 
 I have practised this often in Scotland. But of all this I shall 
 speak more hereafter. In the meantime, let me dismiss, as 
 briefly as may be : I., what kinds of trout and fish of the salmon 
 kind are to be caught in Scotland by the angler, it being best for 
 bim to know what he is to expect ; II., what materiel and 
 equipment will best suit him, and how he is to proceed; III., -and 
 finall}^, conduct him to the rivers and lakesthemselves, and there 
 discuss with him many nice and difficult questions, which closet 
 naturalists, learned though they be, have failed to solve. 
 
 1st. Of the kinds of trout and of salmon which are caught in 
 Scotland, and in the rivers and lakes of the Border country. 
 
 Although it be easy enough in general to distinguish at a 
 glance a fresh-water trout from a sea trout, and both these from 
 the true salmon, more especially when all three have attained 
 their adult condition, jet this kind of knowledge, though highly 
 practical and useful, being, in fact, what constitutes the skill of 
 the experienced fishmonger, will be found far behind that which 
 the angler requires or desires to know in respect of the beauteous 
 
CLASSIFICATION OF THE SALMODflDiE. 5 
 
 finny tribe, for which he angles. The naturalist, it is true, is 
 bound, as a naturalist, to take note only of the fully-developed 
 adult individual ;* this he carefully examines and describes, 
 recording its characteristic features in the great Book of Natui'e 
 — the sy sterna naturce, in fact, of his adoption, whether that 
 system be a modified one, dressed up by himself, or a ready-made 
 one, the production of a master-mind ; a Linne, a Buffon, a 
 Cuvier, a De Blainville. But no good observer, not even the 
 angler, will or ought to stop here. He does not always catch 
 the full-grown fish ; fiiany little ones and young ones are taken, 
 differing widely from the full-grown, though of the same kind, 
 not yet individuaHzed, and therefore not readily recognisable ; yet 
 he would like to know what they are — what they would become. 
 Are they trout, or salmon, or salmon-trout ? and if merely trout, 
 to what species or kind do they belong ? 
 
 It is with the hope of assisting the angler, and the curious 
 observer of Nature's works, that I here offer him the following 
 brief sketch of some of the results of countless angling excur- 
 sions, reserving for other sections of this little book a more 
 minute account of what the angler may meet with in Scotland. 
 
 In the rivers and lakes of Scotland, in so far as I have fished 
 them, there are three distinct natural families of salmones, form- 
 ing the genera of naturalists ; to each of these belong several 
 species absolutely distinct, whatever my esteemed friend, M. 
 Valenciennes, may say to the contrary. 
 
 Of the genera, or natural families, there is 1st, the Salmo 
 Salar, or Trout ; some call this the Fario. I recommend the 
 angler to eschew all pedantry. 
 
 2nd. The Salmo Trutta, or Sea Trout, universally called 
 ^' Trout" simply, by the salesman. 
 
 3rd. The Salmo, or true Salmon. 
 
 These three natural families have many characteristic differ- 
 ences, which, when present, will enable the observer always to 
 distinguish them from each other, even although the external 
 robe, with its various spots and colouring were either acci- 
 dentally destroyed, or altered by disease, or deeply affected. 
 
 * Valenciennes. 
 
6 
 
 FISH ASB FISHIXG IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 as it sometimes is, by an approach on the part of the fish to its 
 spawning or foul condition. Of these three characteristic marks- 
 I shall here mention only the teeth, placing before the reader 
 
 1st. The dentition of the trout. 
 
 2nd. The dentition of the sea trout. 
 
 3rd. The dentition of the salmo when adult, that is perfect^ 
 inasmuch as any animal condition can Be esteemed perfect. 
 
 Look into the mouth of the first river or lake trout you meet 
 with of a good size, and you will see in the upper jaw or roof of 
 the mouth — 1st, An uninterrupted row of teeth, extending^ 
 around nearly the whole margin of the mouth. These teeth, 
 being all of one kind, are characterized, not as in mammals or 
 
 
 Fiy.6. 
 
 V 
 
 "Figs. 6 and 7.— Arrangement of those teeth in the middle of the palate which anatomists 
 call vomerine. In the fresh-water trout they are arranged in a double alternating row:» 
 The large fresh-water-lake trout lose the teeth placed transversely in front {aa, figs. 6,7)^ 
 but they retain for life the double alternating row behind. . 
 
 Fig. 8. — The same teeth {vomerine) in the sea trout when young. 
 
 Fig. 9. — The same teeth in the sea trout somewhat older. 
 
 Fig. 10. — The same teeth in the sea trout still older. By this time they are reduced to a 
 short single row, and this we never find in the fresh-water trout. In the true salmon 
 the transverse teeth (a) alone remain. 
 
 in man, by different names expressive of their functions (inci- 
 sors, canine, molars) ; but by the bones supporting them, namely, 
 maxillary and intermaxillary, palatine, etc. 
 
 2nd. Now within these, or nearer to the mesial or middle- 
 place or line of the mouth, is a second semicircular row of teeth, 
 interrupted, however, at two points. These are called vomerine 
 teeth, being carried on two bones, which anatomists generally 
 agree to call palatal bones. In the middle line of the palatal 
 and between these last described, you may now observe vomerine 
 teeth, a double alternating undulating row of teeth, extending 
 from before backwards, separated from the palatal by clear tooth- 
 less spaces, the points of the teeth being turned outwards, and. 
 
DENTITION OF THE SALMONIDiE. 7 
 
 SO arranged as if they occupied a ridge not sufficiently broad to 
 hold them symmetrically or side by side in pairs, hence alter- 
 nating. These characteristic teeth are called vomerine or 
 vomerian. I have occasionally called them middle palatal, for they 
 occupy the middle line of the palate : the bone supporting them 
 IS presumed to be the vomer, and they form the key adopted by 
 many naturalists to the generic distinctions of the salmonia of 
 every description. 
 
 The figures given here represent the palate in the three natural 
 families of the salmonidae, namely — 
 
 The common trout adult. 
 The salmon trout „ 
 The true salmon „ 
 
 But I caution the reader to remember, that this classification of 
 the salmonidae based on the teeth, is not sufficiently comprehen- 
 sive to include all ; for we shall find, that there are river trout 
 which have transverse teeth on the fore part of the vomer, even 
 in the adult state, and in this resembling the young sea trout 
 and salmon; for they, when young, have a double row of 
 vomerine teeth which they lose as they grow older. 
 
 To render all this more distinct, I have caused to be repre- 
 sented here, the said vomer, with the vomerine teeth, as they 
 occur in the presumed adult, in the three natural famihes of 
 Salmonia. The question as to what is the dentition of the young 
 of these three natural families, opens up an inquiry which need 
 not be. entered on here. It will find a fitting place in some 
 future chapter of this book, which the angler may perhaps 
 peruse when, wearied with angling, he reposes on some sunny 
 bank, before him the cr^^stal stream full of trout, the stepping 
 stones over which have tripped many light hearts now cold and 
 pulseless ; the ruined abbey telling of a race and a worship now 
 dead and gone; the wooded bank, a vestige of that forest 
 through which roamed the ancient inhabitants of Caledonia; 
 shall we ascend further into the records of time ? Yes. Look 
 at that tiny fish in your hand, just escaped from below the gravel 
 into a world of waters ; observe it carefully ; study it deeply ; 
 mark its forms ; for they are vestiges of a former world. That 
 little fish, some two or three inches long, so strongly resembling 
 
§ riSH AiN'D FISHING IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 a common trout iir its shape, its colouring, its dentition, is pro- 
 bably a salmon ; yet it has the teeth and robe of the trout ! 
 Mysterious fact, explicable only by the great minds of the earth, 
 by Newton, Goethe, GecJffroy ! It was you who first proclaimed 
 imity of the organization of all that lives. The salmon kind 
 form no exception to this great law ; when tiny and young they 
 all resemble each other, assuming with time the specific charac- 
 ters which mark their adult condition. Thus does the young 
 salmon gradually lay aside that elongated fin which connects 
 his formation with worlds past and gone ; next, the red spots 
 and cross-bars allying him with the river trout of both kinds ; 
 by and by a robe of silvery scales conceals all vestiges of his 
 early years ; and last, not least, the double row of teeth which 
 carried on the body of the vomer all but disappear, leaving 
 merely one or two, together with those on the fore part of the 
 vomer (the chevron), which few full-grown fresh-water trout 
 when grown, admitting their presence when young, retain.* 
 
 But whether or not you may choose thus to wander back in 
 time, endeavouring to discover the uuknown in the Past, and to 
 find its demonstration in the Present, you will not, I trust, imi- 
 tate old Izaak, who, living in London, and fishing all the rivers 
 about that centre, could coolly record in his " Complete Angler," 
 that " the Fordich trout," a good trout too, " was never known to 
 rise at an angle," and yet make not one jom'ney to discover what 
 might be the reason of this ! Happy, contented Izaak ! you were 
 never troubled with the desire to discover the unknown in the 
 past nor in the present ; sufficient for you was the fact that it 
 is so. You were a linendraper, it is true ; but Franklin was a 
 printer, a working man. Nevertheless, it is pleasant to see what 
 a refreshing book may be written by one devoid of genius to 
 observe anything, but simply blessed with a love of nature suffi- 
 ciently strong to narrate what he felt and saw. Izaak wrote 
 two hundred years ago. 
 
 * M. Valenciennes seems to think (for he is not very clear on this point) 
 that no adult trout ever has transverse vomerine teeth, or teeth on the 
 chevron. But in another part of his work he speaks of them as being "peu 
 distinctes." I think I have seen them distinct in the full-groT\Ti trout, in 
 one species, at least. 
 
PEACTICAL APPLICATIO!^ OF SCIENCE. 9 
 
 To return to the dentition of trout and sahnon. Vv^hilst the 
 three families of salmones have in the upper jaw maxillary, 
 intermaxillary, palatine and vomerine teeth, and in the lower, 
 jaw mandibular (those in the tongue being called lingual, and 
 these also are present in all the families), yet the vomerine are 
 differently arranged in each. For the common trout the vome- 
 rine teeth are arranged in a double alternating row, and they 
 hold their ground even in the largest, but are generally confined 
 to what anatomists call the body of the vomer, that is, the elon- 
 gated back part of the bone. To this, however, as I have already 
 remarked, some species offer an exception. For the grown sea 
 trout, however (the salmo trutta), the vomerine teeth are 
 arranged in a single row on the body of the bone, whilst a trans- 
 verse row occupies the forepart of the vomer, which French 
 naturalists call chevron. For the true salmon, on the other hand, 
 when fully grown, the double alternating row of teeth formed 
 on the body of the vomer when it was a smolt, and the single 
 row which remained for a time after the double row had dis- 
 appeared, are now themselves reduced to one or two on the fore- 
 part of the body of the bone, the transverse teeth on those of 
 the chevron remaining to the last. 
 
 Thus you may, by putting your finger into the mouth of the 
 fish, tell, without looking at it, whatever be its size, to which of 
 these natural families it belongs ; but this does not apply to the 
 young of these families, for the same dentition prevails in all. 
 
 Now, if every individual of the great family of the salmonidse, 
 including all trout and salmon, could be brought within this 
 law, then, for the first time, I believe, since science began to be 
 cultivated, the natural history system invented by man would 
 be in accordance with Nature's system or plan; and the great 
 formalist, the puffed up "systematic" would swell and strut 
 and point to his achievement, how he had discovered Nature's 
 plan, arranged her works and omitted nothing. But unfor- 
 tunately for him, and his schemes and methods and formulae, 
 Nature never does her work in this way, but fills up all intervals, 
 leaving no void space in her grand scheme. In the course of the 
 present work I shall mention a fish which externally resembles 
 a salmon, but in its vomerine teeth combines the dentition of 
 
10 riSH AND FISHING IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 the trout and sea trout ; and, no doubt, there exist species of 
 the great class Salmonidse, which not only fill up the voids in 
 the natural families, and in all the species, but even connect 
 these with other fishes, on which the name Salmonidse would be 
 improperly bestowed. 
 
 Now, in regard to the species of the three great natural 
 families 1 have aheady named, I may observe, that in Scotland 
 th^re are at the least, four distinct species of trout, namely : — 
 
 I. 1st. The dark-spotted lake trout. 
 2nd. The red-spotted estuaiy trout. 
 
 These are the best of their kind, they have pink-coloured flesh, 
 and are excellent to eat. 
 
 3rd. The red-spotted common river trout, with pale flesh, and 
 tasteless. 
 
 4th. The pink-coloured red-spotted common river trout, chiefly 
 found in England. 
 
 5th. The parr trout, rather better, when fed in certain rivers, 
 than the common red-spotted trout, but never equal to the pink- 
 coloured fish. 
 
 6th. The dark-spotted river trout, of whose natural history I 
 know but little, although I believe such a trout exists ; and 
 
 7th. The Salmo Ferox, or great lake trout of the North. 
 
 II. Of the Salmo Salar, or sea trout, the angler will 
 meet with several species, hitherto not well determined. One 
 ascends the rivers earlier than the other ; it is the common Sea 
 Trout. The other takes to the fresh water streams at a later 
 period of the year ; it is the so-called Bull Trout. 
 
 III. Of true salmon there are no doubt several species ; but I 
 have not been able to discover their characteristic differences. 
 
 Lastly, of doubtful fish there is, 
 
 1st. The Parr. 
 
 2nd. A fish with the external appearance of a salmon, but with 
 a dentition combining that of the common river trout and sea 
 trout or salmon. 
 
 3rd. A fish strongly resembhng a salmon, and almost as good 
 to eat, which appears in the London markets early in October ; it 
 is marked all over with darkish spots, like some trout. The fish, 
 I have been told, comes from Scotland, but I have not met with 
 it there. 
 
EQUIPMENT OF THE AN GLEE. 11 
 
 Enougli has been said systematically about trout and salmon. 
 I shall therefore reserve the proofs of the correctness of these 
 opinions for the chapters in which I examine each river, brook, 
 and lak€, placing the angler by the banks, opposite some favourite 
 and killing stream; his basket full of fish, he may, if he so 
 choose, compare this book with Nature. 
 
 II. 
 
 The material and equipment of an angler are not matters of 
 indifference. Should he reside near the banks of trouting 
 streams, the angler gradually degenerates into a mere pot- 
 angler ; he is fishing unconsciously for the kettle ; neither is he 
 very particular as to the time when, with salmon roe, or otter, 
 or with worm, he chances to kill some stone weight of trout, 
 emptying the stream for a period, rendering it worthless for the 
 season, and interfering sadly with the one to come. In '51 he 
 draws, a la Napoleon, the conscripts of '53, forestalling Nature's 
 supplies. Such a person is no true angler ; he does not rush from 
 the smoky town, where, long pent up, debarred from fresh air, 
 exercise, and the contemplation of Nature's work, he has 
 become an idler and a triller. I write not for him, neither 
 should he have a cottage of mine near a trouting stream at any 
 price. I write for him who, dwelling in towns, amidst what, in 
 courtesy, I presume, to man's taste, is called a civilized humanity, 
 becomes at last weary of the commonplace of every -day life : for 
 him whom the carpeted room, the morning paper, the ample 
 library, the well-supplied table, the pleasant social converse of 
 educated friends have ceased to please : for him who instinctively 
 feels that, ceasing to be a man as Nature made him, he is be- 
 coming a citizen — a cit ! Abhorred word ! I would rather 
 dwell, as I once did, amidst the wild and now desolate dells of 
 the Anatolo, leading at the base of the beauteous Boschberg 
 the life of the wandering Caffre, than listlessly pace London's 
 idly busy streets, with nothing to look at but miles of hideous 
 brick walls, with holes in them called doors and windows. 
 Odious commonplace ! you mask humanity, and mar the better 
 part of human nature. 
 
 I shall suppose the angler about to proceed to some angling 
 station, there to commence his operations of at least a few days 
 
12 FISH AXD riSHIKG IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 duration. To be altogether independent in this world is difficvJt. 
 In angling expeditions, however, as in warlike, where men not 
 trout are caught and knocked on the head, I strongly recom- 
 mend the Napier system of materiel and equipment. A short 
 salmon rod, reel and line, from fifty to sixty feet, is the best. It 
 must have some spare tops enclosed in the butt. A basket 
 somewhat longer than those in general use. A book containing 
 tackle of every description used in fly, worm, and minnow fish- 
 ing ; choice of flies. Lastly, wrapped up in a waterproof bag, 
 hose, and wading shoes. The suit of clothes he wears, made of 
 Scottish plaiding, is quite enough. In his pockets he will place 
 a few extras, not forgetting a knife and pair of scissors. Of 
 waterproof clothing, I know but little ; for, in the first place, 
 none I have ever tried proved to be waterproof. And yet I 
 could fancy a small cape useful, if hght and not cumbersome. A 
 friend told me that once, by a river side, he saw something 
 stalking about strongly resembling the Ghost in " Hamlet." On 
 approaching the phantom, it was Charles Bell, cased to the eyes 
 in waterproof! Well might my friend say, " Which of you has 
 done this ?" Was it Soho-square with its carpeted rooms ? Or 
 was it the everlasting thunder which rolls over flinty Oxford- 
 street ? Or the soul-destroying den of Windmill-street ? I 
 know not, but so it was. Here was poor Sir Charles transformed 
 from a man into a cit. He once said to me, " People say that 
 you are the only person I never quarrelled with." I told him 
 that the world had said precisely the same of me. Peace be 
 with him. His remains repose, I think, in England. We met in 
 Castle-street of Scotland's capital for the last time. He was leav- 
 ing for England, he said, resolved not to return. He never 
 did. 
 
 I have always fished in this independent manner, so that on 
 leaving the inn in the morning I could proceed onwards down 
 the stream without being obliged to retm-n for any luggage. 
 Nevertheless, I have at times felt the inconvenience of this when, 
 after a long day's fishing, my basket full of trout, and many 
 weary miles from the inn I had slept at, the shades of night 
 fast obscuring the blessed day, it became urgent to march boldly 
 on some distant town or village. 
 
THE PENTLATfD HILLS. 13 
 
 I recommend the angler to avoid this, if possible, and to 
 return towards evening to the inn at which he rested the 
 previous night. Should he adopt this method, which I strongly 
 recommend, he will be enabled to take with him to the fishing- 
 stations, without inconvenience, a small knapsack containing 
 many useful articles, and even a spare fishing-rod. Beware of 
 attempting an unknown glen without some food in your basket. 
 These lone glens are exceedingly deceptive, and night may over- 
 take you, long before you reach the desired resting place. I speak 
 not of Highland glens, those of the Lammermuir and Cheviot 
 are lonely and wild enough. Poach not over the same streams, 
 but go boldly forward to new scenery and deeper pools. Leave 
 nothing to be done at the water side, but have joxir tackle ready 
 and in the best order. He is a poor soldier whose flint is in his 
 pocket on first getting sight of the enemy. It answers, I have 
 been told, well enough in Ireland and in the Highlands of Scot- 
 land, where nothing is in ita plkee, and nothing is done in the 
 right time. But it mdufeher suits Scotlknxi mor Englaoidi, as the 
 reader, if an Englishman, must oft have discovered to his cost. 
 
 A good angler is ever ready and prompt, never late, never 
 careless, and if anxious, he must take care to conceal his anxiety 
 from trout and men. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 THE STREAMS FLOWING FROM THE PENTLAND RANGE. 
 
 THE ESK, THE LEITH, AT^D THE AMMOIfD WATEES. 
 
 At the distance of a short walk from the capital of the ancient 
 kingdom of Scotland, there reposes in solemn and lonely gran- 
 deur a beautiful range of hills, which elsewhere would perhaps be 
 called mountains ; the Pentland Hills. They are said to resemble 
 the Andes, in miniature. But be this as it may, they present 
 some lovely cones and massive hills, covered with purple heath, 
 purple at least to the angler, who should never travel over Scot- 
 
14 FISH AND J?ISIIII«'G IX SCOTLA^'D. 
 
 land's wild and lonely mountains, but when the heath is in 
 bloom, when the leaves are on the trees, when fleecy clouds float 
 over head and soft west winds carry with them the fragrance 
 of the balmy south. 
 
 From the western slope of the Pentland, and of the hills in 
 which it terminates, flow the water of Leith and the Ammond ; 
 on the eastern, the North and South Esks. The Pentlands, in 
 fact, separate the rich fertile valleys of West Lothian and Esk- 
 dale, forming a spur or abutment of that vast hilly country, 
 which, traversing Scotland from St. Abb's Head to the shores of 
 the Western Sea, divides Nithsdale and Berwickshire from 
 Clydesdale and the Lothians. Of the Ammond water I cannot 
 advise the angler, but an " honest angler" and most worthy man, 
 
 Trout taken with fly at Colt-bridge, near Edinburgh, in the water of Leith, 21st March, 
 1835; length 8 in., weight 6 oz. 
 
 told me that sea trout may be taken with fly, or minnow, or her- 
 ring-fry, or sand eels (a favourite food of the sea trout, but which 
 he deserts for better when he can get it), as bait, within the range 
 of the tide, nay, at the mouth of the river near Ammond. The 
 angler who may be disposed to try the stream of which I speak, 
 will find the banks tangled with wood, the ground at once slimy, 
 rocky, insecure, the angling difficult and confined to a very short 
 space. He will require, in fact, mud-boots, a strong rod, and a 
 strong arm, and, I fear, much patience. 
 
 In August and September, especially during easterly winds, 
 salmon, sea trout, and hirling, begin to enter the mouths of the 
 smaller streams which join the Frith of Forth ; the little salmon, 
 called hirling, I have seen taken in the sea with the coble net, 
 used as in rivers, not far from the mouth of the Esk, at Mussel- 
 
THE WATEB OF LEITH. 15 
 
 burgh, a stream of which I shall speak presently. It is probable, 
 therefore, that in the mouth of the Ammond, and within the range 
 of those waters "into which the tide ebbs and flows," these 
 hirling and sea trout as well, may readily enough be taken, espe- 
 cially with sand eels, a bait of which the sea trout and hirling 
 greedily partake, although they prefer more delicate food when 
 they can get it. Favoured by a strong wind, whether easterly 
 or westerly, and an ebbing, or perhaps still better, a flowing tide, 
 a determined angler might have a day or two's good sport at the 
 mouth of the Ammond water. He ought to have acquired the 
 art of fishing " under hand," for trees abound. 
 
 The surrounding grounds belong in part, if I recollect aright, 
 to the noble and liberal family of Torpichen ; kind and hospitable 
 to strangers, and claiming their descent from "the Reformer," 
 who truly deserved that name : the man to whom Scotland owes 
 her liberty, freedom of conscience, exemption from tithes and 
 bishops, popery and prelacy, alike abhorred by Scot. See 
 how Burns writes on this great question — the greatest of all 
 questions — national independence — 
 
 " Scots, wha ha'e wi' Wallace bled, 
 Scots, wham Bruce has often led, 
 On to glorious victory !" 
 
 Scotland, by her own act, has been blotted out of the list of 
 nations. The loss of national independence is a melancholy sub- 
 ject for reflection, and so I turn from it and from the Ammond 
 water to other scenes and other streams. 
 
 THE WATER OF LEITH. 
 
 High on the north-western slope of the Pentland, the angler 
 will find at the distance of a morning's walk from the capital, a 
 small stream making its way through heath and dark knolls, 
 onwards towards the ocean. It is one of the sources of a charming 
 stream, whose banks present the most varied and beauteous 
 scenery ; it is a tiny stream where I speak of it, that is, high on 
 the shoulders of the Pentland range. This source of the water 
 of Leith (for it is not the only one), crosses an uneven plain on 
 which there are no bushes nor trees to interrupt the sport of the 
 
16 FISn AKD PISHIKa IK SCOTLAND. 
 
 angler. On reaching the table-land he must not lose time. Let 
 him select, if he can, a hot and close day, following a rainy night, 
 summer showery-looking clouds, and having plenty of good small 
 worms well cleaned and prepared, he may take in a short time an 
 excellent dish of trout. When I first fished this stream in the 
 company of the best of anglers, I was a very young angler. My 
 friend pointed out to me the ground, recommending me to keep 
 well back and to lose no time. In a few minutes three admirable 
 trout lay on the bank, when suddenly all sport ceased. I could 
 not comprehend what had happened. My friend now returned 
 from the upper part of the stream which he had selected for his 
 ground, and told me I might put up my rod and prepare for the 
 road ; pointing, at the same time, to a dark and lowering cloud 
 of an inky hue collecting over Pentland's summit. It was a 
 thundercloud — over it came, wind, rain, lightning, thunder. 
 Then I remembered Scott's " Lady of the Lake," which was just 
 published. Pity it ever was. 
 
 " The springing trout lies still : 
 So darkly lowers yon thunder cloud, 
 "Which swathes as with a purple sliroud 
 
 Benledi's distant hilL" 
 
 Often, subsequently, have I observed this singular phenomenon, 
 the explanation of which is as obscure as all other physiological 
 laws. Why should fish — trout, at least — dread thunder ? The 
 more strange that it is in certain fishes we find that wonderful 
 electrical apparatus connecting in so remarkable a way the laws 
 of the electric fluid with those which regulate the nerves and 
 brain of man. 
 
 'Now why should fishes, and more especially trout, be such na- 
 tural electrometers ? They are called cold-blooded animals, and 
 some have thought them insensible to pain. All this is, I fear, sheer 
 nonsense and twaddle. But be it so, it does not explain why 
 trout should be extremely sensible natural electrometers. It is 
 amongst the same class, fishes, that we find natural electro- 
 machines, voltaic piles, galvanic troughs! The gymnotus of 
 Surinam, and the torpedo of the Cape, and one or two more, 
 strike their prey dead by an electric discharge. To accomplish 
 this. Nature has furnished them with a pecuhar apparatus she 
 
ELECTEIC EISHES, 17 
 
 has denied to other animals, hut the materials called organic 
 are still the same, — it is merely hy the arrangement of a few- 
 materials that Nature accomplishes so much. 
 
 The existence of electric fishes was known to the ancients, as 
 we call the Romans and the Greeks. Pliny, who collected so 
 much curious nonsense, so many false facts, so many hypotheses 
 which he mistook .^for facts, knew this fact : viz. that electric 
 fishes exist, and he records it. He knew, also, that people em- 
 ployed the torpedo in the treatment of rheumatism and paralysis ; 
 but whilst men are always apt enough to find out some utili- 
 tarian application of natural phenomena, no one thought of 
 inquiring into the cause of the phenomenon. Verily, I have but 
 a poor opinion of applicative genius — the only kind of genius 
 possessed, it is said, by the Saxon race. It invents nothing, it 
 merely applies. If such had been the character of the genius of 
 Galileo, Torricelli, Volta, Newton, and Hunter, we should have 
 been now mere recorders of facts and falsehoods, and of their 
 " ingenious applications." That some fishes have electric powers 
 was not enough for Hunter: he desired to know the cause 
 thereof, and he left us his " Inquiry into the Electric Organs of 
 the Surinam Eel," a model for all inquirers, though unfortu- 
 nately it led to no physiological results. Industry, ever on the 
 look-out to turn the penny, is no doubt a good thing. It lays 
 the foundation for national, and occasionally for individual, 
 wealth. By it, nations rise in the scale of civilization — indirectly, 
 it is true, but still they rise, slowly, surely. But industry requires 
 no stimulus, no incentive, no such prizes and laudation, as the 
 "model nation" seems to think, at present. All men are quick 
 enough to turn the inventions of others to account : all Saxon men, 
 I mean — for the Celt is hopeless. Yet he also is industrious, in 
 his own way, in the acquisition of wealth : he aims at acquiring 
 it by the sword. England and Holland boast of their wealth 
 acquired by patient industry ; I partly doubt it. India and 
 the Indies were not acquired by patient industry. But to return 
 to the Esk. 
 
 Industry is a great thing, a material fact, but genius is 
 greater. In what time Greece, by her " patient industry," would 
 have sculptured the Venus and Apollo, composed " Euclid," the 
 
 c 
 
18 FISH AND FISHING IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 "Iliad," the "History of Animals," and conquered the then- 
 known civilized world, Avithout the advent of Praxiteles, of Homer, 
 of Euclid, Aristotle, and Alexander, I know not. But sure I am 
 that the advent of these men must have assisted somewhat the 
 " patient industry" of Greece. 
 
 Ye model people, who " cannot make a statue," let Industry 
 alone ; she requires no encouragement. Your sham patrons, of 
 nohle and ignoble blood, know this well, but it suits their purpose 
 to mislead you, praising your foible as if it were j^our forte. 
 Industry ! labour ! order ! Excellent claptraps, which admit of 
 a translation into taxation, slavery, discipline. 
 
 After rains, in soft, warm summer weather, trout, and most 
 excellent ones too, may be taken as readily in the water of Leith 
 as in any other stream, notwithstanding the abundance of mills 
 which intercept its course. The village of Currie, about six miles 
 from Edinburgh, used to be a good station, and even much 
 lower. The excellent and kind-hearted angler to whom I have 
 alluded, used to fish the river at the dam-head of Colt's bridge, 
 scarcely two miles from Edinburgh. But on these occasions 
 he fished at night, with the finest tackle and with the smallest 
 midge-flies, dressed on a single hair or gut. With these he 
 caught large trout, weighing occasional^ two pounds, and of the 
 finest flavour, for the water of Leith possesses the kind of trout 
 found chiefly in the south of England, and but rarely in Scot- 
 land, " the red-spotted pink-coloured trout of rivers frequenting 
 streams above the influence of the tide."* 
 
 I never met with any par in the Leith, owing, probably, to 
 there being no salmon ; but I will not avouch this to be the sole 
 cause, for I shall speak by and by of rivers in which salmon, or, 
 at least, sea trout, abound, which yet are without par. But of 
 this more hereafter. 
 
 THE ESK. 
 
 There are two Esks — the North and the South. I know 
 nothing of the South Esk. The North Esk was an excellent 
 fishing stream in my younger days. Let me describe it. 
 
 * Dr. Knox. MS. 
 
A day's nSHI^^G IN THE ESK. 19 
 
 A DAY S FISHING US' THE ESK. 
 
 On a warm autumnal morning, fresh and pleasant, heavy rains 
 having fallen the day before, my companion and I took the road 
 to Glencorse ; but before reaching that we thought it were wise 
 to strike the stream called Glencorse Burn, at Auchindinny 
 bridge, a lovely and sequestered spot, within a two hours' walk 
 of Edinburgh, As we neared the bridge, an angler appeared on 
 the opposite bank : the honest angler is always civil and often 
 liberal, so we hailed him. In a few minutes we three were 
 seated on the southern bank, a short way below the bridge, and 
 the contents of his basket turned out on the greensward for our 
 inspection. He told us his adventure. Starting long before 
 daybreak from Dalkeith — pleasant Dalkeith! — near Musselburgh, 
 he reached the stream above Glencorse, fishing it from that point 
 downwards to where we met him. His rod and flies were free to 
 our inspection, as were the two-and-a-half dozen pretty good 
 trout he had caught that morning. His flies were the moderate 
 size red hackle; his lines without pretension: he was no ex- 
 perienced angler, but knowing enough to fish the waters after 
 floods, when trout will bite at anything and fear nothing. He 
 had caught no large trout, which would not have happened had 
 he used minnow as a bait ; but he had no apparatus, and pro- 
 bably but little knowledge of the more refined and skilful angling 
 for the overgrown inhabitants of the stream. He was a working- 
 man, a mechanic, living and working in a village ; one of those 
 who live in a round of ideas, a circle. In a thousand years they 
 scarcely advance a step, and if they do, it is lost in the next ten 
 centuries. Some think that the recession is somewhat less than 
 the precession, and thus a something is gained in every cen- 
 tury. Be it so ; but all admit that human progress is incon- 
 ceivably little — all thinking men, I m^an ; the great mass beheve 
 otherwise ; but I need not say here what I think of them. I am 
 writing for thinking men, for anglers. 
 
 Our new acquaintance left us, proceeding on his way ; we fol- 
 lowed shortly after. But soon heavy black clouds began to 
 obscure the high Pentlands j rain followed as a matter of course, 
 
 o2 
 
20 Fisn AND risiiiKG in Scotland. 
 
 and by the time we had fished the beurn from Auchindinny 
 bridge to the beautiful Esk, which it joins about a mile from the 
 bridge, it rained so heavily, that not even the shady banks of the 
 river could protect us. We were close to the entrance of a mill, 
 rare in the Esk ; near this the trout rose at the flies two and 
 three at a time ; we took them every instant ; large trout began 
 to show themselves ; they bit as freely as the smaller ones ; but 
 now it rained in torrents, and fairly drove us from the river, 
 whilst to the last, the faster and heavier it rained the faster the 
 trout rose at pur artificial flies. 
 
 The sight of trout cannot be very good. In stormy weather 
 ruflling the waters strongly, and in heavy rain, ^^ou may stand by 
 the river side and take as many trout as you like, in still 
 reaches, where there are neither rocks nor perceptible streams. 
 The same happens in cloudy, stormy, windy weather, when the 
 waters are clear. Along the base of Mountjoy, on the >Whit- 
 water, there is a long still reach, as straight as a canal, which, 
 unless the waters be dark and flooded, no angler would think of 
 fishing ; for, as in walking along the banks he can see the trout, 
 it is natural to suppose that they also see him ; nevertheless, 
 in heavy winds, though weather and river be clear, I have fished 
 this reach with much success, taking many good-sized trout. 
 In the rocky streams above lie many fine trout twenty- two 
 inches in length. But I must return to the Esk. 
 
 It was now dusk, and we sought shelter and refreshment. A 
 small roadside thatched cottage furnished both. Next morn- 
 ing by break of day we were on our road to the Tweed. 
 
 At the time of which "1 now speak, the lovely vale of Glen- 
 corse was as Nature made it ; solitary, wild, but not desolate. 
 Now, a reservoir with its enormous embankment, intended to 
 assist in the supply of water to the capital (in which, however, it 
 signally failed) sadly disfigures it. The trout confined to this 
 reservoir could no longer pass down, or at all events, none could ever 
 again pass upwards towards the source from which the stream of 
 Glencorse takes its rise. I have fished in this reservoir, but with 
 no success. It has been said, that some sea trout which happened 
 to be at the sources of the stream when the reservoir was closed, 
 being thus cut off from their descent to the ocean, became accus- 
 
THE GENTLE SHEPHEED. 2J, 
 
 tomed to this artificial lake, lived, throve, and reproduced their 
 kind. I do not believe a word of all this. The same statement had 
 been made many years ago by a most scientific man (the late 
 Dr. Maculloch), of a lake in the Isle of Lismore. I fear that he 
 took the statement on hearsay. Near Guisborough, in the North 
 Kiding of Yorkshire, there is a small stream or burn, which 
 drains the valley of Guisborough. Sea trout enter this from the 
 sea in considerable numbers, and they breed in the rivulet. In 
 due time, in April, or the beginning of May, the gamekeeper 
 takes with a net a good many dozen of the fry, silvery and 
 shining like salmon, transferring them alive to a large collection 
 of fresh water ; or artificial lake, as it were. In this, the fry, 
 so transported, live very well for a year or two ; but, from that 
 time fall off, becoming long, lanky, black, diseased, and wholly 
 unfit for food. Now, my information is not from hearsay, for I 
 was present on one occasion at the . transfer of the fry to the 
 pond. Why one result should happen in Yorkshire and another 
 so different in the reservoir of Glencorse, I leave to be reconciled 
 by those who say that they have caught sea trout in that 
 reservoir, which I never did. 
 
 Man's handiwork in this lone valley has spoiled a natural 
 glen of great beauty, desecrating ground almost classical. For 
 here Allan Eamsay laid the scene of the "Gentle Shepherd." 
 Allan Eamsay, of whom the noble Burns sang and wrote — • 
 
 " The tooth of time may gnaw Tantallan, 
 But thou'rt for ever." 
 
 Many years afterwards I fished the stream below the reservoir 
 on a hot summer day ; there still were trout to be taken. What 
 surprised me was their want of strength whilst on the line. 
 Did this arise from their being cut off from their native sources ? 
 Who can say ? Man creates nothing, he simply destroys. Man 
 is a great destroyer, but not the sole. Other unseen agencies 
 are at work, sweeping the earth of its living inhabitants. Saunter- 
 ing homewards one evening by the southern slope of the Pent- 
 land, these were my reflections. 
 
 '* Soft falls the eve on Woodhouselee. " 
 
 The wooded banks of the Esk sweep far away to the east ; but 
 
22 riSH AND FISHING IN SCOTLAND, 
 
 I loolz towards Woodhouselee notwithstanding, strangely enough 
 connecting its wooded ravine with Marie Stuart. Craig Millar 
 is in the distance, and Abercorn. The scenery will repay the 
 angler his walk, even should his day's angling have proved 
 unsuccessful. 
 
 Of the Esk itself, as an angling stream, I can say but little. 
 It is too wooded. But this I believe, from what I saw at the 
 junction of the Glencorse stream with the Esk, that in close 
 autumnal weather, and during rams, a bold angler, with a strong 
 rod, short line, good tackle, flies and minnows, might in the 
 Esk, at various points, find excellent sport. But he must not 
 regard the getting thoroughly wet, crossing the streams up to 
 ihe waist. Let him beware of the deep gullies, longitudinal and 
 precipitous, worn in the sandstone bed of the river, brim full of 
 water, and most treacherous. A false step here might lead to 
 destruction. Thus cautioned, I recommend the angler to tra- 
 verse, as he can at various times, the beauteous banks of the 
 Esk, from Woodhouselee to Eoslin, from Boslin to the sea, if 
 he can obtain permission. In my j^ounger days large sea trout 
 ascended as high as Dalkeith, "pleasant Dalkeith;" honoured 
 in some of Delta's sweet verse and charming prose. He will 
 meet with scenery not to be surpassed, if equalled, of its kind, as 
 Koslin and Hawthorndean. But the Esk is not a river to be 
 fished by young and inexperienced anglers ; no more is the Tyne, 
 angling in which will form the subject of my next chapter. 
 
 At the mouth of the Esk is, or used to be, a stake-net, in 
 which are taken, during the autumn especially, salmon, sea trout, 
 and hirling. The fishermen also occasionally haul the seine from 
 the shore, around the mouth of the old harbour, taking small 
 sea trout and hirling. Of these I remarked this ciirious circum- 
 stance : some had been feeding on the food preferred by the true 
 salmon, and which he can only get in the sea, namely, the eggs. 
 of the Echinodermata, marine animals, called star-fish, sea-urchins,, 
 &c.* ; but others had been feeding plentifully on sand-eels. In 
 the former the flesh was highly coloured, like salmon; the 
 stomach and intestines clean, semi-transparent, and all but 
 
 * Dr. Knox '' On the Food of the Salmon, Herring," &c. Transactions 
 of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 
 
ixflije:n-ce of the food of fishes. 23 
 
 empty : in the latter the flesh was paler, and the stomach and 
 intestines loaded with semi-putrescent debris. 
 
 I have since made the same observation with respect to hir- 
 ling and sea trout taken in the Solway ; that is, that whenever 
 they have been living on the eggs of the Echinodermata, the 
 flesh was deep-coloured, and then' stomach and intestines all but 
 empty ; the opposite being the case when sand-eels and fry 
 formed their food. Thus food has a certain influence over the 
 quality of fish. The rich colour of the salmon, and the excellent 
 qualities of the flesh of the char, of the winter and spring trout 
 of Loch Leven, do not depend altogether upon the peculiar food 
 which it is now known* these fishes prefer ; but unquestionably 
 this food is necessary to bring them to that perfection in colour 
 and flavour which renders them so excellent. On the quality of 
 the food then, combined with other circumstances, will depend 
 the excellence of the fish ; that is, whether or not the individual 
 is to reach that perfection which we know to be attainable under 
 favourable circumstances. But to this must be added " specific 
 character" and "the appropriate season," without which no food 
 can ever avail. 
 
 The flesh or muscle of the smolt (young salmon) is pale, and 
 not much better than a common trout of the same size. It 
 bears the same relation to the flesh of the grown fish, the adult 
 salmon, that veal does to prime beef. Its food, it is true, is the 
 food of the common river trout, on which, whilst in the fresh- 
 water streams, it feeds voraciously. But descending to the sea, 
 it in a very few months, nay, even weeks, rapidly attains matu- 
 rity. What in the meantime has happened ? 1st, it has grown, 
 and become matured ; 2nd, it has obtained in great abundance, 
 no doubt, the real food its instincts prompt it to feed on ; 3rd, 
 it breathes a marine air, as nature intended it should. 
 
 The streams, then, which run from the Pentland range contain 
 the red-spotted pink-coloured trout, analogous, if not identical, 
 with that of England. The common red-spotted trout, coarse 
 and tasteless, is also there ; yet I mention it as somewhat 
 remarkable that, in as far as my experience goes, admirable trout, 
 
 * Dr. Knox's "Memoirs on the Salmonidae. "-^Trans. Royal Soc. Edin. 
 
24 Fisn Ais^D risHiNG ii?- Scotland. 
 
 not inferior to those of England, are sometimes cauglit in the 
 artificial ponds of Abercorn ; ponds fed by a rivulet called Clear 
 Burn, a short way from Edinburgh. Indeed, it is not impro- 
 bable that most of the trout taken in these streams, if allowed to 
 grow to a proper age, would prove of the pink-coloured kind, 
 and excellent as food. But they are generally caught when 
 small ; their flesh then has neither the colour nor flavour of the 
 full-grown trout ; this they can only acquire with time. 
 
 I regret that I cannot put my hands on any notes respecting 
 the natural history of the red-spotted pink-coloured river trout 
 of Scotland ; and cannot therefore say whether or not they are 
 identical with those of England. In lieu thereof, I may offer the 
 angler, in a future chapter, some observations on the trout of Eng- 
 land, which I consider as analogous, if not identical, with the 
 trout caught in the stream I am about to describe ; for it is in 
 the Tyne, of which I have next to speak, that trout are found 
 which would not discredit the Itchen or the Thames. 
 
 I subjoin a few notes respecting the salmonidse taken with 
 nets at the mouth of the Esk (near Musselburgh), one of the 
 many small streams which pour their waters into the Firth of 
 Forth. 
 
 Notes respecting the food of the sea trout and hirling, taken 
 at the mouth of the Esk, Firth of Forth. 
 
 ^^ Stake -net fishings at Fisherow.* — The runners were not 
 found essential ; the tenant also fished the shores with a coble and 
 very fine meshed net, able to take anything, and similar to 
 what we saw used on the Nith. With this he took some sea 
 trout of six pounds' weight, and many fish which he called 
 hirlings : to me they looked exactly like the hirlings of the 
 Nith and Solway. Eight were examined, each about fourteen 
 inches long, male and female nearly equal ; neither ova nor milt 
 were developed, flesh not so good as in those of the Annan, 
 ascribed by me at the time to their food, for in all, the stomachs 
 were loaded with the fry of herrings and sand-eels in all stages 
 of solution, the red substance (ascertained to be the eggs of 
 the Echinodermata)t being wanting. This kind of food was 
 
 * September 1st, 1832. 
 t Dr. Knox '*0n the Food of the Salmon." 
 
THE TTNE. 25 
 
 almost constantly found in the stomachs of the hirlings of the 
 Nith and Solway. On the 4th of September of the same year, 
 seven more whilings or hirlings were examined at Fisherow; 
 one, fifteen inches long. This was excellent eating ; it con- 
 tained in its stomach and intestines the reddish substance, but 
 nothing else (eggs of the Echinodermata) in the stomach and 
 intestines. The other six were like the previous one, both as 
 to their food and condition when used as food." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE ty:n^e. 
 
 I HAVE ever preferred angling in summer and in autumn, 
 though well aware that April and May fishings are excellent. 
 The trouts are ready, and have got, or are getting, into good 
 order ; but the land is not, and the forests are black and leafless. 
 In April and in May the ground is drear, and cold, and black 
 in Scotland, and even in England. I prefer, therefore, June or 
 July, August and September, and even October, though late for 
 sport. I love to wander by the banks of streams, and on the 
 by-paths in lonely glens, when west winds are beginning to 
 strew the woodlands with yellow leaves ; when salmon and grilse 
 begin to run for the mountain streams, leaving their undiscovered 
 oceanic haunts ; pensive to mark, unpinched by eastern gales and 
 splashing rain and sleet, the water-ouzel flitting from pool to 
 pool, the campagnole plunging beneath the overhanging bank ; 
 to listen to the turtle-dove cooing in the wooded slopes ; to mark 
 the melancholy and solitary heron standing motionless by the 
 willow-shaded pool. In a word, let not the angler seek the 
 Scottish rivers too early. 
 
 Springtime is beautiful, most beautiful ; but there is, properly, 
 no spring in Scotland. Until June, the country is desolate ; then 
 comes forth joyous Nature, young, fresh, reanimating the lifeless 
 earth. But pensive autumn has also its beauties ; though sum- 
 mer, bright and glowing, is the noontide of life. ^ 
 
26 FISH Ais'D risniNG ik Scotland. 
 
 Let others love the city, 
 
 And gaudy show at sunny noon : 
 Give me the lonely valley, 
 • The dewy eve, and rising moon ; 
 
 Fair beaming and streaming 
 
 Her silver light the boughs among. 
 
 The Tyne cannot be fished in a day ; but it may in two or 
 three. Should the weather be favourable, the angler may still 
 even now have good sport. Sweet spots he will pass through ; 
 lowland fields and woods, — he traverses, in fact, the valley of the 
 Tyne, one of the richest in Scotland. I recommend him to make 
 for Blackshiels, by coach or on foot. He will find a pleasant inn 
 here, where he should rest for the evening, and, after an early 
 breakfast, make for Hunbie "Woods and Manse. The mill-dam, 
 though small, contains abundance of trout, but the stream lower 
 down traverses woods which forbid all angling. He must seek 
 for some more open ground towards Salton, where some parts of 
 the river are still open to the angler. 
 
 In Hunbie Woods stood, a few years ago, a grand tree, sup- 
 posed to have belonged to the original Sylva Caledonia of the 
 Homans. 
 
 The Tyne drains the northern slopes of the Lammermuir from 
 beyond Soutra to the Eed Brae of Danskine. A pretty strong 
 branch joins the Tyne ruiming from the Red Hill of Danskine 
 and Lammer Law, by Grifford. I never fished it, but it no doubt 
 contains trout, for I have ate of those which were caught by 
 boys in the neighbom'hood of Danskine Inn. They were no 
 way remarkable for their quality, any more than were those 
 caught at Humbie ; and this seems to me the more remarkable, 
 as in the lower waters of the Tyne, from Haddington to the 
 sea, excellent red-spotted pink-coloured trout are caught ; and of 
 the fishings from Haddington to the sea I shall now write. 
 
 The angler, in fishing the Tyne from Haddington to the sea, 
 will be interrupted by several preserved grounds ; but there is 
 sufficient open space below them, above as w^ell as below Hailes 
 Castle. In these waters, fished with care, he cannot fail to take 
 excellent trout with artificial fly and minnow. In May I have 
 caught salmon fry close to Hailes Castle ; but I never saw any 
 par taken in the Tyne, at**any point. There lives on Tyne 
 
so PAR IN THE TTI^^E. 27 
 
 banks a school-fellow of my own, now I believe an earl, who, I 
 am sm-e, would decide this question for me were I to write to 
 him ; and this remark I happened to make whilst enjoying the 
 hospitality of a nobleman as fond of trout and salmon as I am 
 myself. Now it happened that a gentleman who sat beside me 
 at the table was a relation by marriage of my noble school- 
 fellow, and he therefore said that not being quite so busy as I 
 was, he would proceed next morning to the Tyne, and decide this 
 negative point. I heard afterwards that it was decided against 
 me, and that par are to be found in the Tyne. They must be 
 very few. I have angled the Tyne often at various points, and 
 never saw one ; nor met with an experienced angler who had. 
 I had baskets full of trout sent me at various times from East 
 Linton, on the Tyne, caught for me by a most experienced 
 angler, Mr. Ballantyne, but I never saw any parr amongst these. 
 But be this as it may, the Tyne near Hailes Castle affords ex- 
 cellent fishing, and many of the trout, though red-spotted, are 
 excellent eatmg, having pale rose-coloured flesh. 
 
 As we descend the Tyne to Linton, the portion of the river 
 influenced by the tide is reached : and this point would afford 
 good sport to the angler, were it not almost daily fished by means 
 of a very powerful net which takes everything. Sea trout are 
 frequently caught, and salmon occasionally, but of this I am not 
 quite certain. But that of which I am certain is, that there are 
 taken here, though not very abundantly, a red-spotted trout, 
 with pale rose-coloured flesh, like sea trout, and excellent for the 
 table. I have called it the Estuary trout,* and it is specifically 
 distinct from all others. At the end of the chapter I have 
 briefly sketched its natural history. Its food I have ever found 
 to be the small shrimp, which float in cone-shaped clusters, with 
 the apex towards the back, and against the stream. My friend 
 G-eorge Hunter, of Tynefield, an excellent angler, now fishing for 
 gold in Australia, assured me that occasionally a trout such as I 
 describe, might be taken with a small* artificial fly and single 
 hair line, in the river a little lower down and close to the mouth 
 from off the artificial bank at Tynefield. It is not improbable, 
 
 * Knox : MS. 
 
28 FISH AND FISHING IK SCOTLAND. 
 
 but still I know that the food of this trout is peculiar, and in 
 the great number I have examined to decide this point in their 
 natural history nothing was ever found in their stomachs but the 
 shrimp I have mentioned. 
 
 This " trout of the estuary," I afterwards found in the Nith 
 similarly located, i.e., in " the waters into which the tide ebbs 
 and flows ;" waters which clearly to define has defied the 
 legal knowledge of the three kingdoms; nay, baffled science 
 itself, for no scientific man has yet been able to define the mouth 
 of a river, which pours its waters directly into the sea. 
 
 I have been assured that occasionally a dark-spotted trout, 
 of excellent flavour, and strongly resembling the Leven trout, 
 is caught in the lower waters of the Tyne, below the falls and 
 dam of Linton ; and it has been conjectured, with some show of 
 probability, that these trout may have left Prestmannan Lake, 
 and found their way by the sea into the mouth of the Tyne. 
 The theory is ingenious enough, but objections might be raised 
 to it. Prestmannan Lake is a small artificial pool of fresh 
 water, into which the late Mr. Eobert Fergusson, of Kaith, 
 transferred many dozens of the trout from Loch Leven. Of 
 this interesting experiment, I shall speak in the chapter on Loch 
 Leven. 
 
 Tyne Mouth is wild and lonely ; a vast sandy bay, abounding 
 in quicksands, extends for several miles. By this the traveller, 
 at low tide, may reach Dunbar ; but it behoves him to be 
 cautious, and not linger on the sands, nor attempt them alone. 
 They abound in quicksands, in which man and horse have been 
 engulfed. Over these sands the sea rolls fearfull}'- in north- 
 easterly gales, and on them, I think, was cast away, during the 
 last century, the Fox man of war. Beyond these is Dunbar, 
 no angling station, but worth a visit, were it only to look at 
 Down Hill, where Cromwell's Ironsides cut to pieces the flower 
 of the Scottish army ; where the Mucklewraths did for their 
 friends what they after\fards repeated at Both well Bridge. In 
 fanaticism the two hosts were probably equal; they differed 
 only in discipline. Providence favom-ed the disciplinarian. 
 
SALMO ESTUAEirS ; THE ESTUARY TEOUT. 29 
 
 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE TROUT OF THE ESTUARY. 
 SALMO ESTUAEITJS. 
 
 The Estuary trout is a red-spotted, handsomely-shaped trout, 
 livmg in brackish waters, that is, in the mouths of tidal rivers. 
 Its dentition resembles other trouts, but it differs specifically 
 from the common red-spotted trout of fresh waters or rivers. 
 The flesh is of a fine pink, or salmon-colour, and it eats as well 
 as the best Loch Leven trout. I found the same trout in the 
 mouth of the Nith, in a precisely similar locality, i. c., \\). the 
 waters into which the tide ebbs and flows ; and living on the 
 same sort of food, that is, small shrimps, shrimps which hang in 
 clusters by the banks. In weight it runs to four pounds or 
 more ; all that I have examined were taken with the net. 
 
 I had an opportunity of examining two trout taken with the 
 trawl in the sea, amongst the western isles, and not far from 
 Jiute. They resembled the Estuary trout in all particulars. 
 
 In the three great systems of organs which characterize the 
 structure, and consequently habits, of the salmonidae, as compared 
 with each other, namely, the respiratory and digestive (head and 
 gills), and the locomotive, or fins, the Estuary trout holds a 
 middle place between the Loch Leven and the common river 
 trout ; stronger than the first, ^but weaker than the last. They 
 probably belong to a large natural family of the salmonidse, not 
 yet investigated, at the head of which stands the many-spotted 
 salmon, which appear in the London markets towards the end 
 of September and beginning of October, and which, by most 
 London fishmongers, are simply called trout. Their natural 
 history is still to write. 
 
 I have already mentioned the curious fact that trout, quite 
 similar if not identical with the Estuary trout, have been taken 
 in the trawl-net in the sea and sea lochs of the Western Isles. 
 They can live, then, in the sea. The food they prefer, and the only 
 kind of food I have ever found in their stomachs, is a small shrimp 
 (not at all microscopic), which abounds in estuaries and mouths of 
 tidal rivers. The remains of these shrimps are also found in the 
 
30 risn and fishing is Scotland. 
 
 intestines. The head of fishes, in consequence of the form and 
 position of the gills and their gill covers, include those organs 
 which indicate the strength of the digestive organs, and of the 
 respiratory ; that is, the jaws and the gills. Thus the size of the 
 head, cceteris parihus, aifords valuable natural history indications 
 in respect of the habits of the species. If, in addition to these, 
 we add the locomotive organs found in fishes, i. e. the fins and 
 tail, we have three valuable indications of habits and points of 
 comparison with others ; specific characters, in fact, which time 
 nor place can alter during the existing order of things, unless the 
 extreme theories of the good Lamarck be admitted as true. 
 
 If '•vve now examine the trout of the estuary with reference, 
 not so much to those spots and external colouring (though these 
 also in a natural history sense are valuable and important), but 
 to those grand features more immediately connected with the 
 vital functions, comparing them with other species of the trout 
 kind, we shall find, that the head (gills included) and fins are 
 smaller than those of the common red-spotted trout of rivers or 
 of the fresh waters, implying that the fish is less voracious, less 
 active ; that in its flesh it is pink-coloured and most excellent in 
 flavour, dependent no doubt, in part, on the gammari shrimp or 
 small shrimp on which it lives, but mainly, no doubt, on the 
 nature of the fish itself; that the gape of the mouth is smaller 
 than that of the common river trout, but larger than that of the 
 Loch Leven, a fish of still more tranquil habits. Trout resembling 
 these have been taken, as I have been assured, in the Torth, and 
 in the Esk, in Eskdale, Yorkshire. 
 
 In August, in some of these trout, the milt was largely 
 developed. Its teeth are nearly as large again as in the Leven 
 trout. The pancreatic coeca are thirty-six, and the longest of 
 these measured one inch. The dentition was as follows : 
 
 Maxillary 
 
 25 
 
 = 
 
 50 
 
 Intermaxillary 
 
 10 
 
 = 
 
 20 
 
 Palatine 
 
 14 
 
 = 
 
 28 
 
 Vomerine 
 
 10 
 
 — 
 
 20 
 
 in a double alternating row, and placed, of course, mesially : 
 Lingual 6 12 
 
COMPARISO^f OF ESTrAEY TEOUT WITH OTUERS. 
 
 31 
 
 The vertebrsB are 60 ; floating ribs on either side 32 = 64. The 
 peculiar parasitical insect which the salmon brings with him from 
 the sea, is found on these trout. Here is a table, contrasting the 
 Estuary trout with the common Tweed trout, and with the beau- 
 tiful trout of Loch Leven. 
 
 Tweed Trout. Estuary Trout. Leven Trout. 
 
 
 Inches. 
 
 Inches. 
 
 Inches. 
 
 Total length 
 
 12| 
 
 — 12| 
 
 - 12* 
 
 Length of head . . . 
 
 H 
 
 . 94 
 
 ■"tf 
 
 - 2| 
 
 Gape 
 
 H 
 
 
 - If 
 
 From snout to the e^^e 
 
 . 1 
 
 — 1 
 
 - 1 
 
 Snout to pectoral fin . . 
 
 3 
 
 - '2| 
 
 - 2| 
 
 Pectoral fin ... . 
 
 1| 
 
 - If 
 
 - If 
 
 Snout to dorsal fin . . 
 
 - 5| 
 
 - SI 
 
 - n 
 
 Snout to mort fin . . 
 
 . 9 
 
 - 9| 
 
 — 9 
 
 Snout to pelvic fin . 
 
 H 
 
 - 5S 
 
 - 5| 
 
 Ditto to anal fin . . . 
 
 8f 
 
 - 8| 
 
 - 8| 
 
 Breadth of tail . . . 
 
 2| 
 
 — 4 
 
 - 3i 
 
 Snout to end of maxillary b( 
 
 me If 
 
 - H 
 
 - If 
 
 A glance at this table will show that the masticatory and 
 respiratory organs of the Tweed trout are stronger than either 
 those of the Leven or the estuary ; whilst on the other hand, the 
 breadth of tail indicates more power of action in the Leven trout.* 
 
 I have already mentioned that this trout is not afraid of 
 repairing to salt waters ; a friend of mine saw two taken at sea 
 off the Kyle of Bute ; these I examined ; and Mr. Murray, of 
 Henderland, informed me that, ofi" Strachur, in Loch Fine, a 
 trout, corresponding with the one I am now describing, was 
 caught in a net. The teeth in all amount to a hundred and fifty. 
 Let this suffice here for the natural history of a trout which 
 the angler may meet, with, and perhaps even take „with an 
 angle, although I never did. But although he may not be 
 induced to angle for it, it seems right that the angler should 
 know something about the finny tribe, and especially about so 
 fine a trout as the one I have just described. Knowledge is a 
 
 * These tables and remarks are copied from some MS. Memoirs, 
 
32 ^ FISH ATfD risiiiiia in Scotland. 
 
 useful thing, even although it be not power. For want of a 
 little natural history knowledge, I have seen some ludicrous 
 mistakes made, by no means pleasant for those who made 
 them. A young friend, a navy surgeon, told me, that being at 
 sea, the men caught a shark whose stomach was full of the bills 
 or mandibles of parrots and cockatoos ! I showed him the 
 mandibles of the cuttle-fish. He was confounded ; he had never 
 examined the cuttle-fish, and was not aware of the strong 
 resemblance existing between the bills of the parrot and the 
 beak of the cuttle-fish. Again, on seeing vast herds of antelopes 
 grazing on the wide extended plains of Southern Africa, a poor 
 fellow of an assistant surgeon had the misfortune to ask a 
 brother officer if these animals preyed on each other! His 
 character, even as a medical man, fell to zero. Lastly, Mr. T., 
 a clever man, a lieutenant in a crack regiment of infantry, and 
 who ought to have been a captain, for he was the second to 
 reach the top of the wall at the siege of St. Sebastian, shot a 
 bird which the soldiers called a bustard. They had confounded 
 bustard with buzzard, and the filthy brute he had shot (in 
 reality a vulture) gave to him and his horse so bad an odour, as 
 he rode with it into the camp on the banks of the Great Fish 
 River, that for many hours they were both put in quarantine. 
 Knowledge is a good thing, especially when practical. 
 
 A FEW days' fishing ON THE TTNE. 
 
 I select from my memoranda the results of a day's fishing on 
 the Tyne ; one of many passed on the banks of that pleasant 
 stream. 
 
 The day was the 4th of September, warm, sunny, and beau- 
 tiful ; but the river was low, and boded uo great sport. Yet the 
 trout rose in great abundance notwithstanding. We commenced 
 at Hailes Castle, and by 1 p.m. had reached East Linton, having 
 taken one dozen-and-a-half trout. In the afternoon, having ob- 
 tained permission, we fished from the bridge at Tinningham until 
 opposite Lord Haddington's house. The tide had begun to 
 flow, and, in addition to some small common trout^ I had the 
 pleasure of taking with common trout fly, of rather a small size. 
 
TROTJT OF THE TTNE. 33 
 
 One female sea trout (Hirling), 9f by 4f = 4^ oz. ; although in 
 wonderful condition it was decidedly weaker on the line than a 
 trout of a similar size. It was lively only for a few seconds, and 
 resembled in every respect (with regard to the catching) the 
 nature of the smolt. I have preserved the skin, and shall now en- 
 deavour to describe it. Teeth numerous on the vomer, &c., very 
 sharp pupil, smaller than that of a trout seven inches long, the 
 roe as little altered as in the smolt, pancreatic coeca very small, 
 more so than in a trout of a similar size, everything in fact 
 indicating the extreme youth of the animal. The stomach con- 
 tained a shrimp or two and some flies, with a few other insects, 
 but not the salmon food, although the fish must have come from 
 the sea, not only from its appearance, but that this part of the 
 river had been ransacked in the morning, and every living thing 
 taken out in preparation for Lord Haddington's arrival from 
 London. The dorsal fin has twelve rays (nine of which are 
 branched), marked with about a dozen dark-bluish spots, pectoral 
 fin, of a yellow tinge, had thirteen rays ; pelvic, nine rays, white 
 colour; anal, nine transparent white; tail forked; fin tipped with red 
 like the common river trout ; head, particularly above the nose and 
 eyes, of a dusky green colour, spots numerous, obscure, varying in 
 size ; gill covers silvery white, with three very distinct spots on the 
 largest ; belly and sides, up to the lateral line, silvery white, 
 with a very few dark indistinct spots ; back and sides, down to 
 this Hne, dusky, inclining to green, with numerous dark spots, 
 indistinct and varying in size. The flesh is very red, and as an 
 article of food equalling the finest hirling. I cannot, indeed, 
 deem it anything but a young hirhng. 
 
 Five male parr-trout, average size seven inches, largest ten 
 inches ; the milt in this was large, and evidently approaching 
 the spawning state. It was in a similar condition in one seven 
 inches long; in the rest it resembled a thread. 
 
 Nine female parr-trout, average size seven inches long. The ova 
 in the whole not in the slightest degree enlarged. 
 
 My principal object was to obtain parr, and I may say I fished 
 for them alone, but took none ; none of the local anglers can say 
 they have seen any for a long time ; at all events, they admit 
 that they are not in the river at present. 
 
34 FISH AIS'D FISHING IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 LOCH LEVEN. 
 
 The angler, disposed to fish some of the waters north of the 
 Eoman wall, may start from Scotland's capital, and proceed to 
 Kinross, in whatever way he thinks fit. If he be a true angler, 
 he will cross the Frith of Forth to Burnt Island*, and wandering 
 westward, leave the coast line a few miles higher up. Now 
 strike boldly to the right across a country by no means un- 
 interesting ; hilly, yet not mountainous ; lonely, yet not deso- 
 late. He will traverse, it is true, no tangled forest nor copse ; 
 nor wade through wastes of blooming heather; but he wiU 
 enjoy the walk notwithstanding. And now about midday, 
 should he have crossed the Frith of Forth betimes, from the 
 top of the high grounds, forming the southern border of the 
 valley or basin of Leven, the lake in all its beauty and dis- 
 mantled castle fills his eyes ; before him and beyond, repose in 
 solemn grandeur "the everlasting hills," whilst, at his feet, 
 sleeps the crystal lake^ gently sliding o'er its pebbly bed. 
 But whilst his bodily eyes rest on that nature, which, though 
 ever changing, yet ever seems the same to man, what a crowd 
 of recollections of the past surge up before the mind's eye ; 
 of Marie Stuart, and the Douglas, and of him who di'ew with a 
 master's touch the ideal panorama now flitting before the mind 
 of the spectator. 
 
 I have a strange habit of alwa3^s endeavouring to begin at the 
 beginning, I had often visited Loch Leven, and ate its trout, 
 but I had never fished it, and had an idea that its trout were 
 not to be taken with an artificial fly. Experience showed this 
 idea to be incorrect. 
 
 PEESTMANNAN. 
 
 It was during a visit at Biel House, in Lothian, that I 
 chanced to meet one good and honest angler, the late Sir 
 Ronald Fergusson. The generous and hospitable proprietor 
 and his lady, had invited Sir R. F. and Colonel F., Sir B. H., Lord 
 
PEESTMAKNAN. 85 
 
 and Lady C, myself, and several others. Four of the party, at 
 least, were anglers ; and so, next morning, we fished the artificial 
 Lake of Prestmannan, into which, some years ago, the beauteous 
 trout of Loch Leven had been introduced. Under circumstances 
 highly disadvantageous, they throve, notwithstanding, tolerably 
 well, and even bred at the entrance of a small stream which 
 mainly supplies the lake. But what surprised me most was the 
 being told that the trout in this pond (for the sheet of water 
 deserves no o^er name) rise very readily to an artificial fly 
 of rather larger size than is used in river fishing. In an hour, 
 thereafter, I fished the pond ; we were a partie quaree in two 
 boats : General Fergusson, and Colonel Fergusson in one. Sir 
 Benjamin Hall and I were in the other. The trout rose readily 
 to the artificial fly as Greneral Fergusson had told me they 
 would ; and they bit freely, so that we caught many fine trout 
 under circumstances so adverse to the general belief as to the 
 habits of the trout, and its natural timidity, that I could not 
 but express my surprise thereat. Here were the fine trout, the 
 descendants of those from Loch Leven, living in a pond, 
 thriving and breeding, and caught so readily with an artificial 
 fly ; the angler being unassisted by wind or rain, or stream, 
 as if by growing up in this pond they had forgotten that they 
 were trout, whose forefathers had lived in the ample wide- 
 spread waters of Leven Lake, their little ocean, with choice 
 of food, in spring and winter, the delicate entoprostacea 
 bringing them into the highest condition, at a season when 
 other trout are unfit as food for man ; the abundant buccinum 
 a small whelk, but not at all microscopic, supptying them 
 copiously during the greater part of summer, and, lastly, as a 
 never-failing resource, flies, worms, codbait, screws, beetles, and 
 the multifarious hving things, forming the visual food of the 
 common trout, whether he be found in lake or river. 
 
 Dinner came, and we discussed the nature of salmon and 
 trout, and sea-trout, and parr, and especially the nature of the 
 trout now before us. I had heard and mentioned the circumstance 
 to Sir R. F., an excellent angler and brave soldier, that in Loch 
 Leven itself the trout could not be so caught with fly or bait. He, 
 on the other hand, assured me that his nephews had fished Loch 
 
 D 2 
 
36 FISH AND FISHING IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 Leven and caught many trout. It was a question of fact, and 
 I resolved to decide it in such a way as to leave no doubt in my 
 own mind at least. In a week or two afterwards I was on the 
 banks of Loch Leven. 
 
 The angler, leaving Edinburgh, will find no difficulty in 
 
 ■ reaching Kinross ; the lake is at hand ; as it is private property, 
 
 he must engage a boat from the tenant, and in it rowing to a 
 
 small rocky island towards its northern shore, he lands at the 
 
 foot of that ruined castle, once the prison of Marie Stuart. 
 
 Should the wind be strong and favourable, the angler may 
 readily enough take some good trout, as I did. The fly used 
 was a large one, like those we used on Prestmannan Lake. It 
 was in autumn. The trout of Loch Leven taken with nets in 
 great numbers, to be sent all over the kingdom, and at high 
 prices, is a beautiful, silvery, dark-spotted trout, of a species 
 quite distinct from all river trout, and imagined by some to be 
 peculiar to the lake. This, however, is not likely, since trout 
 quite resembling those of Leven are found in many northern 
 lakes. The flesh is of a fine pink colour ; the eating admirable. 
 During summer and autumn, when examined (and I have 
 opened hundreds to ascertain the fact), the trout has its stomach 
 filled with flies and insects, the ordinary food of the common 
 river trout; but, in addition, it is often found to have been 
 living on a small buccinum, or fresh- water whelk, with which the 
 shallow waters of the lake abound. 
 
 But the great pecuharity of the trout of Loch Leven is the 
 fact that, in December, January, and February, many Loch 
 Leven trout come into market, and are then found to be in the 
 highest condition; at a time when river trout are everywhere 
 out of season and unfit for food. Curious to discover the cause 
 of this, I examined a very great number of these winter and 
 early spring trout. In all, I found that the food they had been 
 living on was microscopic ; that is, entomostracan, so small that 
 the microscope was required to make out distinctly the character 
 of the food. These trout were in fact subsisting, thriving, and 
 fattening on the food used by the char and the vengis, and by 
 the herring. I am thus disposed to think that two species of 
 trout inhabit Loch Leven, independent of the common river 
 
MARIE STUART. 37 
 
 trout, namely, the trout which lives on entomostracsB, and comes 
 into season in December, January, and February : and the trout, 
 which feeding on the buccinum, and on flies, worms, and all the 
 common food of the common river trout, comes into season 
 much later in spring. If this view be the true one, then the 
 early trout of Loch Leven ought to be called the char-trout, 
 as being allied to the char in its habits and general character. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott, in his pleasant tale of the "Abbot," skilfully 
 and naturally introduces the subject of the Leven trout, in an 
 ideal conversation between Queen Mary Stuart and Roland 
 Grrseme. The hot-headed attendant had been, as he thought, 
 unjustly suspected and accused. Sir Walter brings about a 
 reconciliation in the following way : — " With the peculiar tact 
 and delicacy which no woman possessed in greater perfection, she 
 (Queen Mary) began to soothe by degrees the vexed spirit of the 
 magnanimous attendant. The excellence of the fish he had taken 
 in his expedition, the high flavour and beautiful red colour of the 
 trout which have long given distinction to the lake, led her first 
 to express her thanks to her attendant for so agreeable an addition 
 to her table, especially upon Sijour de jeune ; and thus brought 
 on inquiries into the place where the fish had been taken, their 
 size, their peculiarities- the times when they were in season, and 
 a comparison between the Loch Leven trouts and those which 
 are found in the rivers and lakes of the south of Scotland. The 
 ill humour of Eoland Grseme was never of an obstinate cha- 
 racter. It rolled away like a mist before the sun, and he was 
 easily engaged in a new and animated dissertation about Loch 
 Leven trout, and sea trout, and river trout, and red trout, and 
 char, which never rise to a fly, and parr, which some suppose 
 infant salmon, and hirlings, which frequent the Frith, and ven- 
 daces, which are only found in the Castle Loch, of Lochmaben ; 
 and he was hurrying on with the eagerness and enthusiasm of a 
 young sportsman, when he observed," &c.* 
 
 The trout of Loch Leven seem to me able to live in waters 
 unfit for supporting the life of the river trout. This was all but 
 proved at Prestmaiman Lake. They succeed also tolerably well 
 
 * ''The Abbot." 
 
38 riSII AND FISHING IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 in an artificial lake on the property of Lady Keith, near Alloa, 
 where I have examined them, angled for them, and taken them 
 with the fly, late in September. In Chapter II., which describes 
 the estuary trout, I have given the measurement of the Loch 
 Leven trout as compared with the common trout and with that 
 of the estuary, proving them to be specifically distinct. Other 
 circumstances in their structure might be' added, such as the 
 great number of the pancreatic coeca, and their great length as 
 compared with other trout. But these are anatomical characters, 
 merely confirmative of the natural history ones. In habits, they 
 resemble the salmon ; for in Autumn, or at the approach of Win- 
 ter, they leave the lake for the streams which feed it, returning, 
 no doubt, to the lake early in Spring. A hundred years ago, 
 Mr. Walker pointed them out as a distinct species of trout, which 
 all subsequent inquiries have proved to be the case. Char 
 abounded at one time in Loch Leven, but these have disappeared. 
 Over-fishing I imagine to be the cause. But the char also 
 diminish in Loch Doone, where no such cause exists, in so far at 
 least as I am aware. Char live almost exclusively on entomostraca 
 or microscopic shell fish, like the vendace and the herring. Char 
 prefer living in deep waters, and it may be that the repeated 
 attempts probably to drain the lake may have succeeded in 
 destroying the char. An amusing law process took place a few 
 years ago respecting the fishery of this lake. No new facts were 
 elicited in respect of the natural history of this trout. The jury, 
 like sensible men, finding the evidence conflicting in respect of 
 the tahe of fish which the tenant asserted had greatly fallen off 
 in consequence of the drainage of the lake, and the want of pro- 
 tection to the spawning flsh whilst in the feeders of the lake, 
 arrived at a verdict in a very sensible manner. The chairman 
 called on each of the jury to state what sum he thought might 
 cover the loss ; he next summed up the whole, and dividing by 
 twelve, thus arrived at an average ; this average they offered as 
 their verdict : damages nearly £1000. The procedure was 
 novel, and amused the court for some time. 
 
 I witnessed here a lamentable scene. A clever man who had 
 followed natural history as an amateur, but was ignorant of the 
 basis of all physiological inquiry, made statements before the 
 
^ TEANSPLANTIT^G OF TROUT. 39 
 
 court, which in fact amounted to this, that the more the hike 
 was drained the more the trout woukl thrive and multiply. 
 Lawyers dislike science and scientific men. 1 really do not ex- 
 actly know what they beUeve in, since to them every question 
 has two sides. But in the case I allude to, the quasi naturalist 
 amateur was not a scientific man but a dabbler in scientific 
 terms. The mischief these persons have done to true science is 
 incalculable ; the more ability they have the worse it is. 
 
 Trout, and more especially as it has seemed to me the finer 
 kinds, will live and even thrive as I have just proved, in local- 
 ities apparently unsuitable for life, and where the coarsest kind, 
 the common river trout of Scotland, for example, would surely 
 perish. Thus, in the artificial lake in East Lothian, called 
 Prestmannan, the Leven trout transferred to its muddy confined 
 waters from the crystal wide- spreading Lake of Leven continue, 
 as we have proved, to breed and to thrive tolerably well, whilst 
 river trout soon die in the same locality. 
 
 On one occasion, it is true, about 120 dozen of these trans- 
 ported Leven trout floated at once to the surface, dead. I had 
 this fact from the gamekeeper himself, who also added that he 
 could never discover any cause for so sudden and frightful a 
 mortality. But those which remained survived the pestilence, 
 whatever it might be, and agam restocked the pond. 
 
 No pond or lake was ever, I think, constructed on worse prin- 
 ciples as a fishpond, than this said lake of Prestmannan, and on 
 examining it, it occurred to me that if the Leven trout could 
 live and thrive there, as is the case, it might do so almost any- 
 where. 
 
 But very fine red spotted river trout are caught in the dam 
 head of the water of Leith, at Colt Bridge, a locality in which it 
 is difficult to believe that any trout or fish could live, yet the 
 fact is certain. I have moreover seen abundance of very fine 
 red spotted trout caught in a small stream which drains the 
 valley of Kilburne, in Derbyshire, a stream into which the 
 refuse water of several coal pits is poured in such quantities as 
 to blacken the entire stream. Yet but for poachers the trout in 
 this rivulet would be numerous. They are of excellent quality. 
 All these facts prove the practicability of greatly multiplying 
 
40 FISH AND FISHING IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 the amount of fine trout in Britain. To me, indeed, it seems 
 quite practicable to stock with these fine trout most of the lakes 
 and even ponds of Scotland, perhaps also of England. They 
 would thrive in the Castle Loch of Lochmaben, and in most of 
 the Highland lakes, where a trout, if not identical, at least 
 strongly resembling that of Loch Leven, already exists. 
 
 Trout come into and go out of season not in so regular a manner 
 as might at first be supposed. Thus the fine grey trout of Loch 
 Leven, the trout I have ventured to call the char trout, come 
 into season as early as December, January, and February ; they 
 ai*e in the primest order as food for man at or soon after Christ- 
 mas, and consequently at a time when all others are quite out of 
 season and unfit for the use of man. I have caught small trout in 
 the Whitadder as liigh as Priestlaw, on the 2nd February, in 
 very good order. A heavy snow storm overtook us whilst de- 
 scending the slope of the desolate Lammermoor by Mayshiel to 
 Spartleton, but it cleared away about eleven ; the sun shone out 
 for a brief space, and the gentle trout, small but active, rose 
 readily to the fly. Nor do trout, as summer advances into 
 autumn, all get out of season, although this occurs no doubt to 
 most of them, as well male as female, the increasing of the milt 
 giving rise to the same results on the condition of the male as 
 that of the roe produces in the female. On these points I find 
 amongst my notes many observations, a few of which I quote 
 merely to authenticate the fact. The notes are simply memo- 
 randa of a few days' fishing at various times in the Grala and 
 other rivers. 
 
 On the 20th of August, 1832, eight small trout were caught 
 in the Gala, with the milts greatly enlarged, and advancing 
 towards the spawning condition. 
 
 On the 24th of August, sixty trout were caught in the Whit- 
 adder ; they weighed twenty pounds ; of these there were thirty- 
 nine males and twenty-one females. In twenty of the males 
 measuring ten-and-a-half inches each, the milt was large in 
 nineteen. In eighteen females averaging seven inches in 
 length, the roe was small. I may here remark that the tubercle, 
 or the extremity of the lower jaw of the male, may readily 
 be recognised in the male of all the salmonidse at every season ; 
 
SIZE ATfD SEASOIT OF TROUT COMPAEED. 41 
 
 it grows to a very large size when the fish is ahout to deposit its 
 spawn. 
 
 The size of the trout, at least in the Whitadder, does not 
 determine the condition of the roe and milt. I have examined 
 trout early in September, not exceeding six inches in length, in 
 which the ova of the roe were largely developed and actively 
 increasing ; and at ,the same time, on the same day, and in the 
 same river, have taken many trout twelve or fourteen inches 
 long, with milt and roe at their minimum. I have observed the 
 same hold good in October. The same holds good in the salmon. 
 On the 25th of October, I caught some trout in Lochskene, 
 which had been feeding on ova ; this was the only occasion in 
 which I ever detected ova in the stomach of a trout. 
 
 On the 6th of July, of sixty trout taken in some of the streams 
 of the Whitadder at the same time, there were fifty-eight males, 
 two females. In May, in the same river, the sexes were equal. 
 In August, 1832, thirty-four trout taken with fly, in a feeder of 
 the Whitadder, gave the following results : 
 
 8 male (average 9 inches) .... milt very large. 
 5 do. do. .... milt very small. 
 
 5 do. (average 5 inches) .... milt very large. 
 1 do. do. .... milt very small. 
 
 15 females, with the ova in various conditions, but none 
 
 much developed. 
 
 34. 
 
42 FISH AND F1SIII]S'G I2i SCOTLAIs^D. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE ISLA — GLEN ISLA. 
 "Till Bimam wood be come to Dunsinnane." 
 
 The angler, after fishing Loch Leven, should boldly stretch 
 from Kmross to Perth, viewing in his route Abernethy's Round 
 Tower, vestige of an unknown antiquity, exciting in the beholder 
 a mysterious awe. How singularly has human history been 
 written, and how widely different in their intellectual natures 
 must be the men who now live from those that were. We can- 
 not even guess at the purpose of their grandest architectural 
 works, nor the date of their erection. 
 
 O'Beirne is dead, who wrote, or rather guessed at, the history 
 of these towers. But that book of his explains not why these 
 towers occur chiefly in Ireland, two only in Scotland, and none 
 in England. They are to be found, it is said, in Persia, but I 
 know not who vouches for this. We Westerns comprehend 
 not at all the myths of the Eastern world. Barbarous, vulgar, 
 unimaginative West ! Beer-swilling, heavy -carcased Scandina- 
 vians ! in what time could you have invented a pyramid, a 
 temple, an obelisk ? Or even you flat-nosed Franks, who have 
 more of soul, more of the transcendental within you, even you 
 came not quite up to the Oriental. So says the author of 
 "Tancred." But I will tell you what you have, and what his 
 race has not ; a slight love of truth in ordinary life ; some regard 
 for truth in history ; a deep feeling for truth in science. With 
 you. Orientals, truth in chronology has no meaning. The earth 
 with you is a plain; the sun, moon, stars, and planets frisk around 
 it, having been made for it. Even money, which men say we 
 Franks and Scandinavians worship as a god, does not with us 
 represent everything, take the place of everything, as with that 
 race who, whether on Sinai or on Highgate, in Jerusalem or in 
 St. Mary Axe, are always the same. 
 
 The angler will make for Perth, no doubt, and soon for Dun- 
 keld ; but before doing so, I recommend him to look at the Tay, 
 at Kinfauns, and, crossing it, then proceed at once to Newtyle, 
 
BIE5fAM WOOD. — DUKSINNANE. 43 
 
 and from this point fish the Isla ; he will find excellent streams 
 near the bridge, above and below. The trout< resemble the 
 English trout ; they are red-spotted, excellent to eat, and of a 
 pale rose colour when opened up. There are others, no doubt, of 
 the common sorts, and parrs abound. Sea-trout and salmon 
 appear in their proper season, and much of the ground is open. 
 Other streams exist higher up, but I did not fish them. The 
 natives are primitive, and the slopes of Glen Isla healthy, no 
 doubt, to strangers ; but nowhere have I seen more disease than 
 in the inhabitants of these original looking villages and detached 
 cottages. The morale beats Paris all to nothing ; but in other 
 respects they are a Sabbath observing population, devout, full of 
 faith, and of large professions. Like the common people of all 
 countries, they are profoundly ignorant of everything around 
 them. Of the past of their own country they know nothing ; 
 of the present but little. I inquired of one of the oldest of 
 these cottar-farmers what mountains those were in the distance 
 He did not know. I knew them to be the Grampians. Of 
 Macbeth he had never heard, but knew a report that a long 
 time ago there lived a great giant in a cave on Dunsinnane hill ! 
 Such is " la peuple." 
 
 Whilst angling in this valley, the kind-hearted proprietor of 
 Dunsinnane invited me to visit him. The mansion he occupied, 
 and which also belonged to him, together with the surrounding 
 estate, stands on the western side of the valley, opposite " high 
 Dunsinnane." It is a wooded valley, terminating in the vale of 
 the Tay. 
 
 As I stood with Mr. Nairne on Dunsinnane hill, it occurred to 
 me that the person who wrote the Macbeth of Shakespere must 
 have been here in person. Mr. N., a brave and experienced 
 officer, concurred with me, that the writer of the tragedy must 
 not only have been on the spot, but viewed the ground with a 
 military eye. It is on Dunsinnane that you command a full 
 view of the entire valley, as far as Birnam Wood. In this wood 
 alone could an army have lain concealed, so as not to be disco- 
 vered from Dunsinnane ; and here Shakespere places the Scoto- 
 English force under Macduff" and Seward : 
 
44 FISH AND FISHING IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 *'Till Birnam wood be come to Dunsinnane 
 I shall not move : 
 And noM', behold, the wood begins to move." 
 
 Thou master of the human mind, how admirably hast thou laid 
 the plot of " Macbeth !" Nothing escaped your genius, neither 
 place nor circumstance. The Celtic mind, as well as that of the 
 lowland Scot, was known to you ; you knew its strength and 
 foible. The weird sisters ; the bare and blasted heath, shine out 
 more clearly in your pages than in the paintings of Zucharelli. 
 In your grand artistic sketch the living actors are before us. 
 Immortal Shakespere ! First of poets. " Macbeth, a Tragedy," 
 would have secured everlasting renown to any name. 
 
 Higher up the valley there stands a noble castle, called 
 Grlanmis Castle. It well deserves a visit ; and so also does Dun- 
 keld, where the Tay itself and many noble streams may be 
 angled in. I have not fished these waters myself, but I believe 
 them to be good. A longer rod will be required than for the 
 streams I have spoken of ; good tackle and choice flies and min- 
 nows. The great proprietor here is the Duke of AthoU, who is 
 uniformly polite to the well bred. 
 
 On one occasion on my way id Taymouth I revisited Dun- 
 keld. A friend drove me in his gig from Perth to Dunkeld, 
 whence I left on foot for Aberfeldie, passing on my way Grand 
 Tully, where I might have halted ; but for Sir John, whom I knew 
 was dead, and Sir William in other lands. On taking up my 
 evening quarters at the Breadalbane Arms of Aberfeldie, I was 
 startled at some unearthly noises which ill-accorded with a 
 highland inn. A stamping and yelling ; a rushing out and a 
 rushing in ; a banging to of doors ; a sort of leaping and dan- 
 cing on the naked floors — to crown all, some one played a fiddle 
 horribly out of tune. Startled I was, but said nothing until 
 next morning, when the whole secret came out. Some eighteen 
 or twenty Cambridge Bricks were passing their vacation here, 
 with their tutor. True to their Saxon nature, and being at the 
 same time thorough bricks, they were never at rest for an instant ; 
 they talked ver}'- loudly; scoured the village in troops some twenty 
 times a day ; dressed fantastically, some in the tartan and 
 philabeg; their thin and fleshless English shanks were inde- 
 
B3JNM0EE. 45 
 
 scribably comic, and I laughed until I nearly dropped. But 
 that which most amused me was, that they fancied they werd 
 ^^ doing the highlander." Never did I see the races of men so 
 well contrasted. The calm, polite, soft-speaking Celt ; the 
 stormy, noisy, boorish, roaring, fretful Saxon. 
 
 As next morning I walked towards the Castle, expecting to 
 hear from its noble proprietor, who at the time was in Argyle- 
 shire, I mused much on what I had seen. I knew "the bricks" 
 well, and had often seen them before, but I had never met them 
 previously so much out of their beat. On the banks of the Cam 
 or at the Clarendon, over a bottle of good port, they look quite 
 at home ; but here, in the land of the Gael, alas ! 
 
 The streams which feed Loch Tay are open, I think, to the 
 angler, for their noble proprietor is generous, hospitable, and 
 free. But I did not fish them on my first visit some years ago, 
 being otherwise engaged with lake fishing, grouse shooting, and 
 chmbing Ben Lawers. I advise the angler to avoid all these 
 amusements ; mountain climbing I have ever found to be a most 
 unprofitable business, although I am aware that in skilful hands 
 who know how to ring the changes dexterously on bells, which 
 have been often played, a mountain ascent is by no means an 
 improfitable speculation. 
 
 Kenmore must be a pretty good trouting station, and so also 
 is Aberfeldie. But I speak not from personal experience. Trom 
 Kenmore the angler may make for the Erne, or returning to 
 Taymouth Cross, the mountainous pass of Loch Turits Glen : 
 or returning to Aberfeldie as I did, strike across the country 
 by the Black House of Balfracks, and so reach Dunkeld by Glen 
 Braim^. He will require a guide. 
 
 The red-spotted, pink-coloured trout of the Isla, and of some 
 other Scottish streams to which I have already alluded, are at 
 least analogous to those of England, and may even be identical 
 as to species. But this I will not affirm. I have seen such 
 trout caught in the streams of Derbyshire, into which the muddy 
 coal-black water runs which was being discharged from extensive 
 coal fields, and in situations in which I had scarcely thought it 
 possible for trout or any other sort of fish to live ; yet they not 
 only hved but throve admirably in these streams, and were excel- 
 lent to eat. 
 
46 FISn AlfD FISHING IK SCOTLAIs^D. 
 
 I have not fished the Hampshire streams nor those which 
 form the Thames, but I have examined many trout from Hamp- 
 shire and Oxford. In one from Hampshire, which measured 
 14^ inches, the gape was If, and the length of the head 3 4 
 inches. There were two of these trout ; the one selected for me 
 by Mr. Grroves (he looks to shape and form) measured 16 inches. 
 It was a female. I give the measurements, which may be useful 
 to the angler — 
 
 Length of head .... 
 
 Gape ...... 
 
 Dentition full and distinct. 
 
 Pectoral fin .... . 
 
 From snout to dorsal fin . 
 
 Caudal fin .... . 
 
 Ked and black spots abounded. This was on the 11th of June. 
 Fine trout are caught in the Stour, which runs by Canterbury, 
 and many Kentish streams are noted for good trout. The trout 
 of the south of England seem to me excellent, being generally 
 pink-coloured in the flesh ; those of the north, and more espe- 
 cially the trout of the Coquet, resemble the common river trout 
 of Scotland; they amuse the angler, but are worthless for the 
 table. 
 
 Si 
 
 inches. 
 
 If 
 
 >j 
 
 3 
 
 
 -6 
 
 53 
 
 7 
 
 3J 
 
 ^ 1 
 
 
 ^9 
 
 JJ 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 LOCH KATEIlN^E YENACHAR — GLENFINLAS. 
 
 Mental fatigue and bodily toil, carpeted rooms, dining in 
 and dining out, but, worst of all, the commonplace of a large city, 
 had done its best and its worst to drive from my mind and body 
 all thought and energy. So I said to my friend, this can be 
 endured no longer, and next morning by break of day we were 
 oif to Stirling. 
 
 The angler may reach Stirling as he chooses ; on foot, by rail, 
 by coach or horse, by steam-boat. I recommend the last mode 
 as the pleasantest, though tedious. The boat will carry him up 
 
THE LINKS OF FORTH. 
 
 47 
 
 the Forth, along its winding banks ; its links ; the rich carse of 
 Falkirk is passed through on the one hand ; on the other, the 
 Ochils, a range of beautiful hills, behind which runs the Devon — 
 
 "The clear winding Devon." 
 '* Crystal Devon ; winding Devon." 
 
 :ss=. r^:% 
 
 BOCHASTLE. 
 
 But I never fished the Devon, although I am aware that the 
 scenery on its banks is most beautiful, and it presents in its upper 
 waters, like the Clyde, a proof that the fish, called parr, is some- 
 how or other connected with the salmon, and for the same reason, 
 
48 FISH AND FISHma llii SCOTLAND. 
 
 namely, that at one part of its course a fall 'exists too high for the 
 salmon to overleap. 
 
 Let us return to the Forth. 
 
 As we sailed briskly along, chatting pleasantly with various 
 friends, whom you are almost sure to meet on the deck of a 
 steam-boat, time passed agreeably enough. Some one or other 
 knows the coast, the hills, the mansions, the people. We met 
 an old schoolfellow, a most worthy man, now a lawyer, and in 
 office. Amongst various things we talked off, he put this odd 
 question to me — Why is it now that recruiting officers are 
 directed to look at the form and appearance of the hands of all 
 offering themselves as recruits ? I explained to him that without 
 pretending to know the precise reason, or all the reasons for such 
 an order, there still were some obvious enough ; such as the size 
 of the hands of the recruits, which, if small, unfitted the recruit 
 from readily handling his musket ; and again, a small hand im- 
 plies a luxurious disposition and a dislike to continued labour, 
 the " lahor improhus,'^ which overcomes all things. As we con- 
 versed I used my own hand as a demonstration of some points of 
 our discourse ; he put forward his also, but instantly drew it back 
 in consternation. He had never looked at his hand before. Like 
 many human hands it was scarcely human ; long, muscular, spa- 
 tular-shaped fingers ; vast breadth of palm, thumb-joint and 
 other joints standing out at right angles ; nails indescribable. 
 He saw the whole at a glance. And now followed a discourse on 
 form and on beauty, which carried us back to the glorious age of 
 Greece, opened up a new world to the vision of my friend, who 
 then learned what neither Blackstone nor Coke upon Lyttleton 
 could have taught him, the laws, namely, which regulate the 
 formation and the deformation of the human form ; of the abso- 
 lutely beautiful and the conventionally so. 
 
 By this time we had reached Stirling, and at once took to the 
 road for Callender, eschewing all coaches, horses, and gigs. But 
 marching through a level fertile country does not restore the 
 energy of the body and elasticit}" of ynind, which a bold sally 
 through a mountain district temporarily does. The high road, 
 too, savours too much of a town — of commonplace Highgate, 
 Hammersmith, and the Borough. But the angler must not 
 
LOCH VENACHAE. 
 
 49 
 
 mind this; so we marched onwards, reaching Cullender that 
 evening. Slow work this, on a September day, but one intensely 
 hot, and so we were fain to rest there for the evening. 
 
 Our road, early next morning, lay along the banks of Loch 
 Venachar, abounding, as we were told, with fine brown trout ; 
 
 ^^^=^ 
 
 GLENFINLAS, 
 
 but the lake belongs to somebody who now represents Ehoderick 
 Dhu in this quarter, and whose permission it is necessary to 
 have, in order to fish its waters. The scenery on its bank.«! is 
 tame, the road without interest, save that doubtful notoriety 
 bestowed on it by the genius whose fame sujEfered so severely 
 by his unhappy poetry, if it deserve the name. We are ap- 
 
50 riSH AND riSHING TS SCOTLAND. 
 
 proaching the country of the Gael — nay, we are in it. Coilin- 
 togle ford is in sight on the left : so is Loch Venachar. The 
 morning is beautiful. Rounding the mountains on the right, 
 the bridge of Turk comes into view, beyond which followed 
 
 "The copsewood grey, 
 That wooed and wept on Loch Achray." 
 
 The angler will find a lodging at the bridge of Turk, and 
 another at the entrance of Glenfinlas. We preferred the latter. 
 The Macgregors are not far off, the descendants of Rob Roy. 
 They are fine-looking men, but have blue eyes. 
 
 Our next care was to look out for angling-ground. Before us 
 lay the small stream running from Loch Achray to Venachar. 
 I fished it with the utmost care, but unsuccessfully. The waters, 
 it is true, were low, the sun bright, and the pools unruffled. I 
 could not learn that the fishing was ever successful in this con- 
 necting stream, or that any of the brown trout ascended it from 
 Venachar, or descended it from Loch Achray, and yet at times 
 this must be the case, as in, floods ; for trout run madly up a 
 flooded stream, and may then 'be taken in dozens by the veriest 
 bungler ; no skill is required then. 
 
 Unsuccessful in the stream, I now fished the river, which, to 
 the south of the Trosachs, connects Loch Katrine with Loch 
 Achray. To reach this stream, you walk from the Bridge of 
 Turk, then along the beautiful banks of Loch Achray, and, 
 passing the inn built in the gorge of the Trosachs, turn to the 
 left, cross the river "that joins Loch Katrine to Loch Achray," 
 close to the mill, and proceed upwards until reaching the smooth 
 gravelly shore of the lake, Benvenue stands full before you ; pre- 
 cipitous and wild, stopping all progress on that side the lake. 
 Now look to the north and east, the Trosachs are spread out 
 before you, a wild, rocky, and tangled scene, well suited for an 
 ambuscade, even now. You must not feel displeased that the 
 scenery falls far short of the jingling description of poor Sir 
 Walter. The bold cliffs of Benvenue, this lone lake's western 
 boundary, cannot be injured by description.* 
 
 * Hopes are still entertained, that Mont Blanc itself may survive the 
 "daily ascent." 
 
LOCH KATEINE. — BENYENUE. 
 
 51 
 
 On this classic ground — for classic it is, perhaps — I now stood. 
 It was mid-day : 
 
 "All in the Trosach's glen was still : 
 Noontide was sleeping on the hill." 
 
 BENVENUE. 
 
 The stream is short, difficult to fish, but there is no lack of good 
 common trout. I saw none of the brown trout of the lake 
 (Loch Katrine), which I heard of as being mostly disposed of 
 by a Highland gentleman angler to the innkeeper at Achray. All 
 persons who live without working are esteemed to be gentlemen 
 
 E 2 
 
52 FISH AND FISHING IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 by the Gael. Angling is not working : it is an amusement. A 
 person who lives by angling is a gentleman ; he toils not, neither 
 does he spin ; with the never-ready, ever-late race, he is therefore 
 a gentleman. 
 
 I descended the stream, fishing it as carefully as I could. At 
 certain times there must be splendid sport here. But the stream 
 is difficult to fish, and extremely rocky. It runs through the 
 Trosachs, in fact, on the southern side; another stream, but 
 smaller, passes through on the other side. I did not see it. The 
 day was bright and warm. I recommend the angler to try the 
 stream I fished, when flooded, early in the morning : he can 
 easily get there before the Gael, who will have his tackle to find 
 and his rod to mend when they are wanted, although he knew all 
 this a month ago. When a boat is required in the land of the 
 Gael, it is then remembered that the hole in the side, made two 
 months since, had not been closed. When this is done, an oar, 
 broken long ago, has still to be repaired ; the tiller is not to be 
 found, it having been used for fire-wood, or to mend a stable door. 
 This is the Gael. 
 
 I turned my back on Loch Katrine and Loch Achray, perhaps 
 to see them no more. The pure air of these mountains and 
 lakes had in a few days restored me to health and strength. 
 I began again to feel like a man, and not like a cit : Piccadilly 
 and the clubs ; the Haymarket and its snobs ; hard, dry, flinty 
 iron-bound Trafalgar-square, were utterly forgotten. I now felt 
 sufficiently strong to attempt Glenfinlas. 
 
 A lovely far-winding glen, commencing by a wooded gorge, a 
 waterfall and a rushing stream, leads from the bridge of Turk 
 towards the north and east. This is the bed of the Finlas. As 
 you ascend the Highland glen, the woods gradually disappear 
 and meadows of no great width take their place. On these the 
 sheep farmers were busy collecting their winter fodder for the 
 numerous flocks of sheep which browsed the lofty mountains 
 shutting in the glen. We ascended it for miles, until, the stream 
 becoming small, it was thought advisable to try our fortune 
 with the finny brood. 
 
 I fished it from this spot to where, rushing into the wooded 
 gorge, anghng was impracticable. The Finlas is a good stream. 
 
BEIDGE OF TFEK. 
 
 53 
 
 Salmon ascend it as high at least as the falls. I do not recollect 
 whether they pass the fall or not, but I almost think they do ; 
 for the fall is more a succession of short rapids than a fall. 
 Besides, at the bridge of Turk, the angler may have some good 
 sport in the Finlas, and at a trifling expense try his fortune on 
 Loch Katrine. 
 
 BRIDGE OF TURK 
 
 It was the opinion I think, of the sagacious Sancho — sagacious as 
 a dog, or a weasel, or a pig, to which animal he bore in habits a near 
 resemblance — that one must live long to see much. I had always 
 thought that no such person was to be found as a female athlete ; 
 
54 FISH AITD FISHING IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 "but there lived at the time I speak of, at the bridge of Turk, a 
 hostess, who came as near the character of an athlete as any- 
 one I ever beheld. Still, to complete the character of a prize- 
 fighter, there was wanting the bold brow, the look of defiance, 
 the enormous neck and brawny limbs. Yet, she was, I was 
 assured, a terrible woman in her way, and talked familiarly about 
 the number of men she had knocked down — including her hus- 
 band, of course. I did not venture to try her strength in any 
 way. 
 
 And now threading our way by Venachar and Callender, in 
 a single bold march we reached Stirling, and by eventide were 
 passing Number 39, in the Castle-street of Edinburgh, where the 
 author of the "Lady of the Lake" passed so many happy and 
 so many anxious days. Farewell to the Land of the Mist ! 
 
 Savage Maculloch !* what could induce you so to maltreat 
 the unhappy Gael ? Voltaire, it is true, handled them sharply 
 enough; he knew them well; read his "Lettres aux Velsches." 
 But the instrument he used was a fine-edged Damascus blade 
 your weapon, a thing compounded of the geological hammer, with 
 which you fractured the rocks of their mountains, and a toma- 
 hawk. It was well for you that you did not revisit the High- 
 lands ; had they but caught you on the quay of Greenock, they 
 would have "pruised you like a pinch of snufF." 
 
 The Gael whom you so abused now flees his country ; he must 
 leave ; his doom has come ; his destiny is determined. He flees 
 before "the Saxon butcher ;"t the red deer and the grouse will 
 dislodge his tiny sheep and cattle. Queen Anne said that she 
 would turn Scotland into a hunting-field ; she must have meant 
 Caledonia. A very common mistake of both queens and subjects 
 is the confounding Scotland with Caledonia — Scottishmen with 
 Celts. Sam Johnson did it, and so do most people, especially the 
 English. But these countries are very, very distinct. 
 
 Caledonia may soon become a great hunting-field ; its name 
 blotted from out the history of nations. It never was a nation, 
 any more than New Zealand, but a wild land, inhabited by savage 
 
 * "Highlands and Islands of Scotland." By Dr. Maculloch. 
 f ''Blackwood's Magazine :" the phrase is not mine. 
 
CALEDONIA. 
 
 55 
 
 tribes of men, whose pastime was bloodshed, violence, robbery. 
 Yet the " Lady of the Lake" of Scott, and the " Donna di Lago" 
 of the great maestro, may live long in the memory of men. 
 
 THE TEOSACHS. 
 
56 FISH AKD FISHING IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 CHAPTEE YI. 
 
 THE ate; THE DOONE ; LOCH DOONE ; THE LOCH OF KEN; 
 
 ST. maey's isle. 
 
 ''Before him Doone 
 Pours all his floods." — BuRNS. 
 
 The angler who is desirous of fishing these waters should 
 proceed to Ayr, making that ancient town his head-quarters. I 
 travelled from Castle Gary in a gig, by a road we had not pre- 
 viously journeyed, our object being to see the river Ayr as near 
 its source as we well could. Our road lay, in fact, to Mauchline, 
 which, though famed 
 
 " For honest men and bonnie lassies," 
 
 is not a place for anglers. After a drive over a dreary and un- 
 interesting country, we reached the town in which the immortal 
 Burns passed some of the happiest days of his life ; but for his 
 memory, the place is not worth naming, nor looking at, and so 
 next morning a short walk brought us to the wooded banks of 
 the Ayr. Wild, rocky, and tangled with trees and bushes, the 
 river forms a succession of short streams and deep still pools, 
 which no winds can touch. It was a warm autumn morning, 
 and the still water resembled molten glass — a polished mirror, 
 reflecting strongly and deeply each tree, and rock, and passing 
 cloud. I was not prepared for meeting so wild a scene; it 
 must have aided Burns 's inspiration, but he has nowhere alluded 
 to it. 
 
 The difficulty of reaching the margin of the stream was con- 
 siderable ; the pools deep and dangerous ; it was all but im- 
 possible to angle. Lower down, however, 1 think we did take 
 a few small trout, but the Ayr at this point is clearly not a 
 trouting stream ; so we descended its banks until, reaching a 
 small roadside inn, close to Stair, -^^e breakfasted luxuriously 
 on tea and kippered salmon, and, returning to Mauchline, pro- 
 ceeded at once by the banks of the Ayr to the town itself. It 
 
LOCH DOONE. 57 
 
 was a long drive. I recommend all anglers to avoid the Ayr ; 
 its banks are beset with weavers' villages, who, no doubt, clear 
 its waters of every living trout, salmon, or sea trout, as fast as 
 they appear. On seeing these villages, we drove on; it was 
 quite enough ; and, as the sun descended on the western ocean, 
 we found a resting-place not far from " the Wallace Tower." 
 
 The next day we examined the mouth of the Doone, looking 
 out for angling ground. We had an opportunity of exam- 
 ining the fishing baskets of two young anglers who had been 
 fishing in the lowest pools of " bonnie Doone." They contained 
 nothing but parr. A walk to Alloa kirk and the bridge of 
 Doone, that bridge which Tam O'Shanter has made immortal, 
 showed me that there was no angling of moment in the lower 
 stream of the Doone ; so, after gazing for a while on a some- 
 what fantastic, misplaced monument, erected here in memory of 
 him who requires no monument, and looked at that stream in 
 which Tarn's wife foretold that he would some day be found, 
 "deep drowned in Doone," and at the bridge and haunted kirk, 
 which will live in the memory of man for countless ages, we 
 turned our horse's head towards Dalmellington. 
 
 The road to Dalmellington runs along the banks of the Doone. 
 An angler might, 1 think, walk this road with advantage. The 
 Doone is at hand ; he walks along those banks and braes so 
 celebrated in song ; they are pretty, but in no way remarkable. 
 1 should not think the Doone much of an angling river in any 
 part of its course ; but it is frequented by salmon which reach 
 by its means Loch Doone itself. 
 
 SHORES or LOCH DOONE. 
 
 On clearing the wooded banks of the Doone, you stand at 
 once at the source of the river, and on the margin of as desolate 
 and wild a lake as fancy can well picture. The Eagles' Crag, 
 bold, precipitous, dark, and frowning, rises to a great height 
 beyond the lake, whilst all around huge heather-clad mountains 
 shut in the waste of waters. Towards the eastern extremity of 
 the lake is a small island, on which stand the ruins of an ancient 
 castle of great strength. 
 
58 FISH AND riSHIIfG IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 We had two guides with us ; not that you absolutely require 
 any guides to reach the banks of the lake, but you cannot well 
 fish it but from a boat, at least with any chance of success. 
 From them we derived a good deal of information ; and first, of 
 course, they allowed me to use my own flies, at the same time 
 assuring me that we should catch no fish ; and this happened, 
 although I used the best, large apd small, and those especially 
 I had found so successful in rivers. They next recommended 
 me to try some of their dressing : large gaudy flies, dressed in 
 gay colours, with silver finishings. I had never seen such an 
 artificial fly before ; nevertheless, we succeeded perfectly, and in 
 a short time caught a good basket of trout. 
 
 These were of two kinds apparently ; none were large ; a few 
 are found in the lake, although I do not remember taking any ; 
 and char, " which rise not at a fly," exist also in Loch Doone. 
 Of these we, of course, saw nothing. A large salmon rose at 
 the fly, but did not bite. The char and salmon no doubt breed 
 in the lanes which connect Loch Enoch just under the Eagles' 
 Cras: with Loch Doone. This Loch Enoch must be the wildest 
 spot in Scotland. I regret not having visited it. 
 
 We saw no large trout, neither do I think that such are 
 common ; nevertheless, I speak from a brief experience. It 
 should be tried with parr-tail and minnow, and w4th salmon 
 flies of various kinds. The shores are rocky, barren, and 
 desolate beyond imagination. A savage country, wdthout a road 
 or hope of civilization. 
 
 Should any angler, fond of nature, visit the ground I have 
 just described, I venture to recommend him first to visit Loch 
 Enoch, and, returning to Dalmellington, journey from thence by 
 the Loch of Ken to Kirkcudbright, and from that ancient and 
 primitive burgh, he may explore with success the wilds of 
 Galloway. Small lakes scattered over that desolate region are 
 said to contain pink-coloured trout of exquisite flavour. I 
 visited by this route Kirkcudbright, but did not fish the Dee, a 
 good salmon river, whose chief source is Loch Ken. My object 
 was different. I desired to see the birthplace of most of my 
 family; to gaze on St. Mary's Isle, of which I had heard so 
 much in my youth ; and on " Selkirk Hall," plundered by Paul 
 Jones, of which said invasion my friends were eye-witnesses : 
 
ADMIEAL JOHN PAUL JONES. 59 
 
 Ye've heard of Paul Jones, 
 
 Have ye not, have ye not ? 
 Ye've heard of Paul Jones, 
 
 Have ye not, have ye not ? 
 Ye've heard of Paul Jones, &;c. — Border Song. 
 
 JOURNEY TO THE SOLWAY FROM DALMELLINGTON BY THE 
 LOCH OF KEN. 
 
 dn a soft autumnal day, such as rarely occurs in Scotland, 
 my good grey mare and gig were ordered to be ready betimes in 
 the morning. My companion and I (anglers should have no 
 companions) were preparing to leave Dalmellington, where we 
 had been residing for some days ; we had fished Loch Doone ; 
 gazed at the Eagles' Crag ; scanned from the heights the wildest 
 part of Ayrshire ; to all this, I said, we shall return some day ; 
 let us, in the meantime, visit the Loch of Ken, St. Mary's Isle, 
 and the desolate shores of the stormy Solway. A true angler, 
 I am persuaded, must be born such ; he cannot become so by 
 education. There is no education in it — it is all romance. A 
 love of the lovely, the wild and solitary, characterize th3 
 northern angler ; with him the purple heath, the ruined castle, 
 the melancholy bleating of the innocent sheep, the solemn 
 stillness of the heath-clad desert, the deep cauldron linn and 
 stream, pure as the crystal, as it leaps and rushes down rocky 
 wooded dells, are objects in the contemplation of which he never 
 wearies. With him there is no ennui, whether he climb the 
 Cheviot or his path lie by Tweed's calmer and classic banks : 
 Tweed, famed in song and story, sung and told by those now 
 numbered with the dead. 
 
 Our way lay eastward. Magic word ! eastward ! Why is it 
 that we love to travel towards the east? Freedom moves 
 westward, and has done so for ages. Do men follow the sun in 
 pursuit of the real, and salute his rising when longing for the 
 ideal ? Hope turns us towards the east ; reality to the west. 
 But let us journey onwards, lest we reach not the Solway before 
 the setting rays of that bright orb, the god of this lower world, 
 shall have gilded the summits of the Eagles' Crag, which is still 
 in view. And now, journeying slowly along, the huge and 
 massive Carsphaim rises on our left, stony and steep, unprofit- 
 
60 FISH AT?^D FISHII^^G IN SCOTLAITD. 
 
 able, nor yet romantic ; without an Alpine character, you yet 
 look as if you had been, for ever and for ever, one of the founda- 
 tions of the earth ! 
 
 I have angled now for half a century, yet nature seems to me 
 for ever the same ; nor time nor circumstance, science nor 
 philosophy, have ever affected my love of nature ; to efface it 
 seems impossible. All may be vanity and vexation of spirit 
 with those over whose minds conventionalism holds its flickering, 
 trifling, soul-destroying, levelling sway ; but all is not vanity 
 with me. The fibre touched by the absolutely true, the perfect, 
 the beautiful, the universal, is still as fresh as when a boy I 
 wandered by the banks of the Whitwater, or climbing desolate 
 Minch Moor first caught sight of Yarrow's flooded stream, 
 or roamed by the banks of the Seine, or gazed listlessly 
 from the slopes of the Anatolo. Why should we weary or 
 become tired of nature ? Is the sun less bright ? Has the 
 mountain-top lost its aerial tints ? the moon her silvery lustre ? 
 the lake its molten glassy surface ? and should the work 
 before us be not of nature but of human hands, yet, absolutely 
 perfect and beautiful, does it sink into odious commonplace ? 
 Do we tire of gazing at the Venus, the Apollo, the Diana, the 
 Minerva? Never! What fills us with ennui, with satiety, is 
 the so-called nature of civilized man ; the nature as fashioned by 
 the citizen, the utilitarian, the man of the day. Everything 
 he does smacks of the shop, the counter, the banker's book, the 
 means and end. Poetasters, versifiers, colourists, men of dodges 
 and tricks ! your clumsy deceptions will pass away whether 
 attempted on canvas, in marble, in gardening, in architecture ; 
 it will all pass away like yourselves ; but Nature, ever young, ever 
 fresh, ever beautiful, will still remain, and with her those 
 immortal names who have seen her face to face. The Cena of 
 Leonardo will never pall on human minds. 
 
 I had brought my angler to Carsphairn ; a well made carriage- 
 road led thence to the high grounds overlooking the Loch of 
 Ken. We visited not its immediate banks, but journeying 
 onwards, gained the point where a ferry pointed out to us 
 the necessity of deciding on our future course. Two roads lay 
 before us ; by crossing the ferry we might shorten our route to 
 
HIGHLANDS OE GALLOWAY. — BITENS. 61 
 
 Kirkcudbright, which was to be our resting-place, if possible, 
 for the evening. But we learned that the road was wild, some- 
 what difficult, traversing the most uncultivated parts of Gallo- 
 way ; inns scarce ; accommodation for man and horse difficult to 
 be obtained ; the sun had crossed the high lands of Galloway ; 
 the valley of the lake was already becoming obscure. Yet it 
 was by this road we hesitated travelling, that Eobert Burns 
 journeyed on horseback when on a visit to the noble family of 
 Selkirk. On that wild and desolate heath he composed that 
 immortal ode, the Song of Liberty. 
 
 But there was another inducement to travel by this road 
 which, yet strong as it was, prevailed not. A young friend, a 
 native himself of these wilds, had assured me that there lay 
 scattered over that mountain range or country, small lakes, 
 containing trout of estimable quality ; dark-spotted, of moderate 
 size, pink- coloured flesh, admirable to eat. Now I am fond of trout 
 with pink-colom-ed flesh. On reading this, some will affirm that 
 I cannot be a true sportsman. Nor am I ; I never viewed as a 
 sport the destruction of any animal. I wander by the banks of 
 lake and river, trying here and trying there, careless what be 
 the success or result. Latterly, I confess, my ideas on this 
 point occasionally underwent a change, the cause of which shall 
 appear in the sequel of this journey. 
 
 Prudence pfevailed, and we turned our horse's head towards 
 Castle Douglas, keeping therefore along the northern side of 
 Ken for many miles. And now it was nightfall, and we had to , 
 inquire our way of the first traveller we met. He proved to be 
 a friend and old acquaintance ; a short half-hour brought us to 
 Castle Douglas. How we sped there, I need not relate. The town 
 happened to be full of personal and esteemed friends, of whose 
 residence I was ignorant at the time. But declining all their kind 
 invitations, we left by break of day this friendly and pleasant town, 
 making our way with all convenient speed to Kirkcudbright. Of 
 that which I have neither seen nor touched, I can form no sure 
 idea, neither did I ever meet with any one who could. Yet never 
 was I accused of a defective imagination. St. Mary's Isle, Kirk- 
 cudbright, the Loch of Ken, and Paul Jones, were as familiar to me 
 as household words. They were household words. From the time I 
 could listen to anything, the first words I heard were, St. Mary's 
 
62 FISH AND FISHING IK SCOTLAND. 
 
 Isle, the Mill and the Miller of Dee, and Paul Jones. Coupled 
 with these were romantic stories, yet narrated to me as true, 
 and which, could I relate them as told, were unquestionably- 
 true. But the events I speak of happened before my time, and 
 yet were fresh in the recollection of the much-beloved person 
 who narrated them to me. It seemed that on a time, the time 
 I now speak of, my friends held a farm of the family of Selkirk. 
 The Little Mote, I think, was the name I often heard it called 
 by, but when I visited Kirkcudbright no such place could be 
 found. There stood, it is true, a homestead or farm-house, or 
 barn, and a few labouring peasants occupied a cottage near. 
 From the presence of a marl-pit at hand, I conjectured that this 
 must be the spot where brothers and sisters now dead and gone 
 first saw the light ; and the adjoining height was the mote ; 
 but all had been enclosed in the park and home farm of the 
 noble owner ; and as I had not come there to trace the site of a 
 ruined farm-house, I soon abandoned the inquiry. But return- 
 ing to the times when my father held a farm in this locality, it 
 is sufficient to say, that they were the times of Paul Jones' 
 visit to St. Mary's Isle. How he landed there, the Bonhomme 
 Eichard tacking off and on in the Solway a few miles distant 
 how he took possession of the house of the earl, who, fortunately 
 for himself, happened to be in London, or at least from home 
 how he dined with the countess and her friends, removing, how 
 ever, after dinner, all the plate ; all this has been told by others 
 but I heard the story from the lips of one who was present at 
 the dreaded meeting. How this plate was afterwards sold in 
 France, the money divided amongst his crew, the plate repur- 
 chased by Paul Jones, and presented to the countess, I have 
 heard from the same lips the romance, for such it really was, 
 with certain anecdotes which have escaped, I think, the grubbing 
 collectors of anas, the Boswells of the day. Of these little inci- 
 dents I shall relate but one. When the boats of the Bonhomme 
 Richard withdrew from the Dee, night began to fall, and 
 the townsmen, who had very prudently kept out of the way, 
 showed themselves in some force. They had discovered a 
 cannon somewhere that they could not find before, and having 
 made this discovery it was easy enough to find something to fire 
 
ST. mart's isle. 63 
 
 at. As nlglit fell, they saw a dark mass looming in the dis- 
 tance some way down the river. It could be nothing else but 
 the boats of the spoliator returning with the crew to sack the 
 town. They manfully fired the cannon, when suddenly on their 
 left, the report was repeated; again it boomed, once, twice, 
 thrice ; they were going to be surrounded and massacred. Sud- 
 den as lightning the gallant townsmen fled, abandoning gun and 
 town, mansion and lady, wives and children. But morning 
 dawned ; the cannon was where they had left it ; what they took 
 for boats w^as a rock, an object they might have seen every day 
 of their lives ; the cannonading they had heard was the report 
 of their own gun, repeated ten times by echo. It was a bitter, 
 joke, which I have been told none who were parties to the sham 
 fight, but real flight, choose to hear spoken of. 
 
 When Lord Selkirk returned and found the plate gone, he 
 stormed and swore that had he been but present, he would have 
 ate up Paul Jones and his crew ! Poor man ! I have heard that 
 he had more courage than sense ; very likely : but he must also 
 have been witty, for whilst on the subject of the plate, he hinted 
 to his lady that her ladyship ought rather to have presented 
 Paul Jones with her own dowry. Witty, but severe ; and some- 
 what unmanly. Lady Selkirk was most beautiful ; but at the 
 same time a portionless lass with a long pedigree. 
 
 Our search after the little mote being unsuccessful, we returned 
 to the inn, and to the town and river. They were taking salmon 
 with stage-nets, a mode of fishing I had never seen before ; we 
 had some for breakfast. There is no trout fishing here; the 
 banks of the river are low, muddy, influenced by the tide. 
 The people had an outlandish, half-Celtic look ; they call them- 
 selves G-allowegians. The goldfinch is found here, indicating a 
 mild and sheltered spot. I imagine the town to be a finished 
 town. On the western bank of the river were pointed out to 
 me the lands of Mr. Broughton Murray, of whom I had heard 
 much. 
 
 The salmon we saw taken were not of large size ; of trout, we 
 saw none. In the stteam below the mill, I have no doubt they 
 abound, and the river up to Loch Ken has unquestionably its 
 finny brood ; but I did not explore it, and cannot advise. I 
 
64 FISH AND riSHINQ IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 should not think this an anghng country ; and this being our 
 opinion at the time, we prepared to quit on the same day the 
 " Isle" with all its recollections, intending to reach the shores of 
 the Solway by another route. 
 
 The redoubted Paul Jones, whose real name however was John 
 Paul Jones, the Nelson of his day, was, as I have been assured, 
 a native of Kirkcudbright. Whilst a boy, and in Lord Selkirk's 
 service, he was struck by the earl, which blow he never forgot 
 nor forgave. His true history has probably never yet been 
 written. His was a life of romance. The G-allowegians, disliking 
 his memory, and smarting perhaps under their own discomfiture, 
 have recorded his visit or visitation in some doggerel rhymes 
 which I have often heard sung by a native of Galloway, of which 
 I have already quoted a verse ; here are some more : 
 
 Ye've heard of Paul Jones, 
 
 Have ye not, have ye not ? 
 Ye've heard of Paul Jones, 
 
 Have ye not, have ye not ? 
 Ye've heard of Paul Jones, 
 
 Who was a rogue and a vagabones. 
 Ye've heard of Paul Jones, 
 
 Have ye not, have ye not ? 
 
 How he came to Selkirk Hall, 
 
 Did he not, did he not ? 
 How he came to Selkirk Hall, 
 
 Did he not, did he not ? 
 How he came to Selkirk Hall 
 And stole the jewels all. 
 And stole the jewels all, 
 
 Have ye not, have ye not ? 
 
 He was a murderer. 
 
 Was he not, was he not ? 
 He was a murderer. 
 
 Was he not, was he not ? 
 For on board a man-of-war 
 He slew his carpenter. 
 He slew his carpenter. 
 
 Did he not, did he not ? 
 
 The English of that day have succeeded in classing Paul Jones 
 with pirates and buccaneers! an excellent device. When you 
 cannot beat an enemy, be sure to slander him. They tried the 
 same plan with Napoleon, but it did not take. Falsehoods well 
 timed serve a purpose, but they are sure to rebound sooner or 
 later on the heads of their inventors. 
 
THE ^^ITH A^'D ITS TEIBTJTAEIES. 65 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE FITH AND ITS TBIB IT T AEIE S, 
 
 *'As wandering by Nith I wait the dewy eve." 
 
 BUBNS. 
 
 I HAYE not a very high opinion of the Nith and its tiibu- 
 taries as angling streams. The population on its banks is too 
 dense, the villages too numerous, weavers and other mechanics too 
 abundant. Still these streams are worth a visit by the angler, 
 who, finding himself in Dumfries, may feel a melancholy plea- 
 sure in wandering by the banks of the river, where mused the 
 immortal lyric bard of Scotland. On Nith-side was he last seen 
 angling. His mind had evidently become disturbed. I do not 
 infer this from his having been found anghng, but from the guise 
 in which he showed himself. He wore a huge hairy cap, and 
 had girded on an old rusty claymore. Thus was he last seen on 
 the banks of the Nith. Alas ! 
 
 The angler will find the best station for fishing the upper 
 waters of the Nith, as I shall venture to call them, at the village of 
 Keir, about ten miles from Dumfries. From this he may fish 
 the Nith itself, and two or three of the streams which join it 
 from the south. In one of these — Carn, I think — a soft and 
 gently flowing stream, running to the south of Ken, through a 
 stiif, loamy, slimy, pipe-clay soil, he will find a peculiar kind 
 of trout — at least as to external appearances ; but it is thirty 
 years since I saw it, and cannot speak now with certainty. In 
 the Nith, unless aided by weather and floods, he will catch 
 nothing but parr, which the people about Drumlanrig mistake for 
 young salmon, and the usual river trout, red-spotted and small. 
 But it must be different at other times, when autumnal floods 
 run high ; for hirling and sea trout, and salmon, and bull trout 
 ascend the Nith in considerable numbers, despite the mills and 
 mill-dam of Dumfries. 
 
 This is the country of the treacherous and bloody Kirkpatricks 
 — not of Closebum, for Closebum does not, nor ever did, belong 
 to them, but to one of the kindest and most hospitable of 
 
66 EISK A2fD FISHHTG rS^ SCOTL.^Js^D. 
 
 families, Menteith of Closeburn. Drumlanrig once boasted of its 
 breed of wild cattle, but these, I think, have been destroyed, or 
 suffered to become extinct. Fish the Nith, and a strong stream 
 which joins it from the south and west, and, crossing the ridge of 
 hills to the south of Keir, fish the Carn : it will lead you to 
 Dumfries. 
 
 XOWER WATEES OF THE Jt'ITH : FEOM THE BRIDGE TO THE SEA. 
 
 I never fished these waters ; nor did I ever see anyone angling 
 in them. The river is here fished with the net, as the fishing 
 belongs to the town of Dumfries. But for this it would, I think, 
 furnish sport to the angler, but have some doubts as to this, for 
 throughout the greater part of its course it is influenced by the 
 tide. Nevertheless, it abounds with the salmonidse, and it may 
 interest the angler to hear them described as I saw them, " taken 
 with the.net." 
 
 JOTJEXET EEOM THE DEE TO THE NITH. 
 
 I left the angler at Kirkcudbright, on the Dee ; and from this 
 we started for Dumfries. 
 
 I am persuaded that no true angler ever — unless compelled 
 so to do by force of cii-cumstances — travels to the field of his 
 enjoyment on horseback, in a gig or chariot, in a post-chaise, 
 or by the most frightful and most odious of all means of convey- 
 ance, the rail. The angler leaves his home as old Izaak did, if 
 allowed to do so, on foot, using the instruments of travel which 
 Nature has bestowed on him. He is, or ought to be, a simple- 
 minded man ; no jolly-good-dinner fellow ; no roysterer; no hack 
 litterateur ; no uproarious bully ; no clubbist ; no man in search 
 of the picturesque — that is, Saxon burlesque, the mock senti- 
 mental. Such men have angled, and written about angling, and 
 they may have written well about it, just as the man of no 
 feeling best described " The Man of Feeling." But anglers such 
 persons are not ; they are roysterers and bullies, who seek the 
 water-side as a relief from dissipation. The poor Cockney, who 
 travels to the Tweed in a post-chaise, and appears soon after on 
 its quiet placid bank, cased, like Hamlet's ghost, in furs and water- 
 proofs sufficient to carry him harmless to the pole : even he, 
 
A MOXKISn VILLAGE. 67 
 
 though no angler, is a better sort of creature than the roystcring 
 roaring bully type, of whom I have seen several. They haunted 
 Inverleithen, and were the pest of that sweet spot. A superior 
 class, usually fox-hunters, infested, and perhaps still infest, the 
 Cross Keys, Kelso. None such are true anglers. But be this as 
 it may, time and tide wait for no man, and so we left the Dee 
 by the same conveyance which brought us there — namely, a 
 gig, drawn by my good grey mare, making our way, without 
 loss of time, towards Dumfries. Man and horse require food, 
 and so we rested at a village or town which the traveller will 
 find about half way between Kirkcudbright and the capital of 
 Dumfriesshire, Dumfries — of some celebrity, chiefly for the 
 cruel fate of the poet Burns ; Bums, " who gauged beer- 
 barrels, whilst George the Third sat on the throne of England.'* 
 "And what for no ?" as the landlady of the Cleikum Inn says, 
 in " St. E-onan's Well," — " what for no ?" As you sow, so must 
 you reap : your social system leads to this ; based on self, it 
 can only end in selfish results. Men of genius are of necessity 
 trodden down amidst the universal rush for gold. When gold 
 alone is esteemed, valued, worshipped, all other things must 
 sink in value ; and this reminds me of one of the bully tj^pe, 
 who also gave himself out for an angler, affirming that he never 
 yet met a patriotic, public-minded man, a philanthropist, who 
 •vvas not at the same time a scoundrel ! This man, though a 
 good mechanical angler, was of the Satanic school. Let us leave 
 him to his own reflections, and proceed on our journey. 
 
 The town or village we now reached wore a curious foreign 
 aspect ; I fancied it had a Flemish air ; a something monkish 
 about it ; a physiognomy unlooked-for in Protestant and pro- 
 testing Scotland ; on inquiry, we found out that it reall}'- was the 
 seat of a nunnery, or monkery, or some such establishment, and 
 that I had not been deceived in my first glance of the place. 
 Important, most important, are the first impressions of those who 
 can observe, first resolves of those whose instincts are large. 
 They are seldom wrong. It is our reason which misleads us ; 
 our judgment that errs ; instinct seldom, if ever. Thus it is 
 that woman is so seldom wrong in her first resolves. When I 
 had resided a short time in that monstrous assemblage of bricks 
 
 f2 
 
and mortar, commonplace and sham, London, Avliere all is sliam, 
 I said to my Cockney friends, that in London it seemed to me 
 "to rain every other day." Some looked grave, others laughed 
 at the idea and thought that I must mean Liverpool or Grlasgow, 
 where, thanks be to Providence ! it rains every day and sometimes 
 snows. So I tried again, and next time fancied that it was not 
 every other day, but not much under that. And now I find, 
 after a lapse of thirty years, that my youthful instinct and 
 common observation were as good as modern statistics, which 
 show that of three hundred and sixty-five days, there are in 
 London one hundred and sixty-two on ivhicli it rains. But I 
 must return to the semi-Catholic village, in which we halted but 
 for an horn-, to bait, that is, to refresh ; and journeying onwards, 
 our resting-place for the evening was, I think, the Murray Arms, 
 in a suburb bearing the relation to Dumfries which Southwark 
 does to London ; that is, occupying the southern bank of the 
 river. 
 
 It was late ; but we were up early to explore the Nith from 
 the mill-dam, adjoining the town, to the sea ; and in search of 
 many things, especially of that which has not yet been found, 
 "the mouth of the river." 
 
 A good ofiicial, a red-tape man of great experience and 
 authority, observed to somebody that he never knew a session 
 pass over in the Commons House of Parliament, without there 
 being placed before it a Salmon Fishery Bill. Whence this care 
 for salmon ? — this anxiety for the due preservation of salmon ? 
 Is salmon an essential article of food for this great nation ? Who 
 eats salmon ? Why all this agitation about salmon ? I will 
 tell you. The proprietors of salmon rivers sit in both Houses ; 
 they are men of large influence ; they are, or at least many of 
 them are, the hereditary heirs of at least the properties, and of 
 most of the privileges of the ancient Norman robbers — I was about 
 to sa}^ or barons — almost synonymous terms — who were, by right 
 of the sword, the heirs of similar Saxon landlords ; they legislate 
 for the nation, and especially for themselves ; but the salmon 
 rivers, as they are called, belong to them ; salmon is a delicate 
 and most excellent fish ; the first of all fishes, the most prized, 
 hence the legislation about salmon. This legislation extends to 
 
SMITH OF DEANSTOT?". 69 
 
 trout, that is, to the sea or salmon-trout, and will extend by 
 and by to other trout, of which I must speak at great length 
 anon. 
 
 We, with fishing-rods and basket, early next morning reached 
 the banks of the Nith, so celebrated in song, duly prepared for 
 whatever might happen. We made at once for the north side of 
 the river, and commenced a sort of survey at and below the 
 bridge. What first engaged our attention was a matter of which 
 I full well knew the history ; the stone steps and resting-places, 
 invented by a most ingenious friend,* to enable the salmon, in 
 their annual migrations up the river, to surmount the powerful 
 river wall or mill-dam constructed a short way below the town. 
 Ingenious man ! your ideas were wholly mechanical : spinning 
 jennies, cogs and wheels, reels and levers, steam-engines, rails ! 
 Your courage and confidence in the powers of machinery were 
 indomitable, thoroughly Saxon ; subsoil ploughs, artificial drains 
 for Nature's watercourses, canals instead of rivers; nothing 
 seemed to please you that Nature had done. Hills you levelled, 
 and level grounds you made hilly. Thoroughly Saxon, 3'ou could 
 let nothing alone. Talk of going ahead ! I def}^ the most out- 
 and-out Kentuckian to beat you. Yet, like these men of the Far 
 West — men of j^our own race, kith and kin, blood and bone — you 
 were beaten sometimes. I have heard that you sustained a 
 defeat in the Hebrides ; somewhere about the Harris or the 
 Lewes, whose bleak and desolate bog and peat morasses, heath- 
 clad, rocky, barren hills, you proposed converting into grass}'', 
 verdant, well-watered plains — Devonshire meadows, irrigated and 
 fertile ! Admirable idea ! But you forgot that you were in the 
 land of the Celt. The man who is born and brought up and 
 dies at last in poverty, misery, famine absolute, by the banks 
 of lakes abounding in glorious trout, at the sight of which old 
 Izaak's eyes would have sparkled; trout finer than any he ever 
 saw, and yet the Celt on the banks of these lakes knows not even 
 of their existence, makes no efibrt to take them ; for him, reduced 
 to villanage and misery by Celtic landlordism, Natui'C has spread 
 
 * Mr. Smith, of Deanston. 
 
70 riSII A^'D FISHING IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 out her choicest gifts in vain. But we must leave tlie Hebrides 
 for a while, and return to the Nith. 
 
 The tide influences the river as high, if I rightly recollect, 
 as this mill-dam just below the town, and which, but for it, 
 would naturally affect it still further towards the interior of 
 the country, or until the increasing elevation of the bed of the 
 river renders its disturbance impossible by any tide. The tide 
 in the Nith was beginning to ebb as we gained the opposite or 
 northern bank. On a sunny da}^ these banks must be beautiful 
 — Scotland is beautiful ! but how many sunny days have you ? 
 Here lies the difficulty. It is the glorious sunlight, clear, wai-m, 
 and balmy, fleecy clouds, blue skies, purple heath, and verdant 
 sward, which alone can make Scotland beautiful. Without the 
 sunshine, all is barren, melancholy, dreary, desolate. The valley 
 of the Nith forms no exception to this any more than the valley 
 of the Isis, the Dervvent or the Trent, the Seine or the Loire. 
 Ivaffraria itself, Nature's grand park, haVe I seen gloomy, cold, 
 and desolate. The period, it is true, was but short : a day or 
 two at most in a year. Winter is always winter, and tells even 
 on the banks of the beauteous Keiskamma and Koonap. As we 
 lay in our laager* on that stormy and rainy night, awaiting day- 
 light and fine weather to enable us to attack with success the 
 residence and chief village of the redoubted Slambie, who, with 
 liis bold Kaffirs, was at no great distance, and ere night fell well 
 awai'e of our presence, the morning came foggy, damp, and 
 miserable. It had rained all night, and for the first time I 
 fancied myself once more in smoky, gloomy, miserable England. 
 But soon the glorious su!ii, rising in aU his splendour from the 
 eastern ocean, chased away these fogs and mists, which rested 
 heav^ily on hill and plain, revealing to us the snow-clad Anatolo, 
 projected on the azure sky, bathed in light. What a landscape 
 was that. Nature's landscape. But I must not dwell on it 
 here. The valley of the Nith, though infinitely marred by 
 human hands, yet offers a beautiful landscape in its way. A 
 tidal stream; boats, and huts, and fishermen; grassy banks, 
 streams — identic, it is true — and long, straight or winding reaches ; 
 
 Dutch woi'd for encampment. 
 
ITET-riSHI^a ON THE Is'ITH. 71 
 
 a sloop at anchor ; whilst not far off, but on the southern bank, 
 rises a granite mountain of no mean height. As we journeyed 
 along the river banks, it was easy to see that the tide had fallen 
 considerably, leaving exposed that debatable ground, the space 
 between high-water mark and low-water mark — a space generally 
 understood to belong to no one, not even to the crown, but to 
 the nation, to all. To a certain extent, it does, no doubt ; but 
 were it not for the navigation of a tidal river, and the necessity 
 there is for suffering no interference with, or permanent obstruc- 
 tion of a space over which a vessel may have to pass on her way 
 to her destined port, I am inclined to believe that this space 
 would long since have been taken full possession of by the land 
 proprietors. We have all heard of the love of gold ; but to me 
 the love of land seems the stronger of the two. On this neutral 
 space, which is strictly neither dry land nor river, nor sea, at 
 times belonging to each, and about a mile below the bridge, we 
 overtook a party preparmg " to fish the river," with an apparatus 
 so effective, so killing, so instructive, that had all the anglers in 
 Britain — headed by my venerable senior ;* by the good and 
 worthy archdeacon ;t he also of chemical memory, J together with 
 poor Sir Charles — fished this river for centuries, they could not 
 have arrived at equally important results. 
 
 The instruments I speak of were — 
 
 1st. A coble, or boat ; 2nd. A very powerful widely-extended 
 net, sufficient to command the river ; 3rd. A couple of oars. 
 The boats of Celtic men seldom have two oars ; one having been 
 broken a considerable time ago, and forgotten to be repaired; 
 and I have known a party try to do without oars altogether. On 
 the Wye, the race prefer the coracle, as they did in Caesar's time. 
 4th. Two men and a boy. I looked with delight at the whole 
 party, and saw that I was about to witness that which I never 
 hoped for — a good salmon and trout tidal river fished a dis- 
 tance of some miles, from an obstructing wear or dam to the 
 Solway, or Great Sea Ba}^, in which the Nith, Eden, and some 
 other rivers terminate, with a closely meshed net — an illegal net, 
 as I had thought — yet used in open day by the tenant of the 
 
 Izaak. f Paley. f Woolaston. 
 
72 FISH ATfD FISHIN& IX SCOTLAND. 
 
 xiver-fishings. The mesli of the net seemed to me about three- 
 quarters of an inch, and accordingly I expected it to do what 
 literally I really found it did — namely, scour the river, taking 
 every thing, from a small sized minnow and herring-fry upwards, 
 to the silvery glorious salmon. 
 
 The tenant who managed the net was a young man, practical, 
 and quite above-board. I asked him if he would allow me to 
 accompany the boat in its passage down the river, observe what 
 was taken, and purchase some of the specimens ; all was accorded 
 at once : I had my choice of all the fish caught, paying for them 
 an extremely moderate sum. Thus they fished the river for 
 -about two miles or more, shooting the net across each stream 
 and pool by means of the boat, and hauling it ashore on the 
 same side from which they start. Thus ihej fished until the 
 rising tide forced them to desist. The sandy, barren, desolate 
 shores of the Solway might now be seen in the distance. Sea 
 birds began to appear; flat-fish or small flounders were now 
 taken in the net, if my memory be correct. The appearance of 
 herring-fry in the stream, about an inch-and-a-half in length, told 
 us that we were in brackish water, never quite sweet, never quite 
 salt. A sort of estuary, in fact, and just the sort of debatable 
 ground in which a lawyer likes to found an argument ; for with 
 him it is all argument. 
 
 Now, what were the kinds offish — the species and the genera 
 as naturalists say, the sub-genera and the varieties, a kind of 
 sub-species — which we caught with the silver hook ? The smallest 
 taken were, perhaps, the minnow and loch ; next the fry of the 
 herring; then the parr, the celebrated, mysterious parr; the 
 river trout, of which there seemed two kinds at least, it may be 
 three or four distinct species ; the beauteous fish in these waters 
 called the hirling ; the sea or salmon-trout ; the salmon itself. 
 Following the example of illustrious Izaak, I may as well begin 
 with the minnow, a freshwater fish he has not failed to describe. 
 
 To the grown-up angler minnow^s are of no interest, saving 
 that occasionally he would give the world, as the phrase is, to have 
 a few fresh ones — small, sparkling, firm, just taken, plump. 
 Finding yourself on the banks of the Whitadder or Blackadar, 
 or Tweed, or Teviot, on a warm summer evening; the w^ater 
 
MINNOW FISHING. 73 
 
 dark and somewhat foamy, full and sweeping ; soft rains have 
 swollen the rivers and streams. And now you want some min- 
 nows ; but where are they to be had ? Perhaps you have brought 
 some salted ones, and I have known such answer tolerably well. 
 In England they have all sorts of artificial minnows, of silver and 
 of brass, bright, burnished, like nothing that ever came from Na- 
 ture's hands ; and you may buy also artificial minnows tolerably 
 well coloured, so as to resemble the real. Between the mill- 
 dam of Abbey St. Bathan's and the first heavy stream opposite 
 the Retreat, I have caught in the Whitadder, with eight salted 
 minnows, withered and dried up, six large trout, not one of which 
 could be readily stowed away in the basket. 
 
 I never used an artificial minnow in my life, and so have no 
 experience of this kind of bait. Fresh- water fish, and others, 
 show sometimes fits of stupidity, during which they will bite at 
 almost anything ; at other times, nothing can tempt them. They 
 are highly nervous, and it is said, even mesmeric : I know the 
 powers of electricity — of a thunder-cloud for example, suddenly 
 appearing ; this I have seen spoil instantly a noble day's sport. 
 
 But to return. A minnow is an excellent bait for trout : it is 
 the best, for it takes all the largest. You may fish with it in the 
 smallest streams or largest rivers, in still water or in the rapid 
 flowing current ; at all times of the year, late in autumn, early 
 in spring. To be a perfect angler with minnow, you must have 
 a strong arm and hand, and be at least five feet ten inches high. 
 The minnow must be made to touch the waters as softly as a 
 fly: it must be made to spin or revolve dexteroush'', and must 
 show life by motion, although it be dead : for trout generally 
 will not look at a straight and dead minnow, dragged by an un- 
 skilful fisher through the waters. Fishing for trout with a 
 minnow is the most difficult mode of angling. It requires real 
 dexterity — that is, if you are to fish, as it were openly, on the 
 bank. The strength of the stream is your point, near some 
 eddy or sunken rock ; a rough stream full of large stones, long 
 since fallen into the river. Such you find in mountain passes, 
 where the river is making its way from one valley to another. 
 But you may fish with minnow, successfully if dexterously, in 
 brooks and small streams, standing well back, and cautiously 
 
74 FISH AST) nSHING IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 dropping the minnow over the bank at the top of the stream. 
 An excellent minnow fisher, a clergyman, who fished to supply 
 the larder, assured me that, sauntering one clear, cold, and 
 di-eary day, along the banks of the Whitadder, the river low, 
 the east wind blowing, and hopeless of suceess, he merely, in 
 sport, threw the minnow across the river, to a point where a 
 small mountain streamlet, more like a drain, joins the main 
 stream, never dreaming that there could be any trout there, or 
 if there, any fish would be found insane enough to take the bait. 
 But so it was, for fom' large trout came out in succession from 
 their hiding-places, and were successively taken. 
 
 I have myself seen something like this, but nothing quite so 
 bad, and can account for it only by imagining that during the 
 prevalence of the easterly winds in Britain, neither man nor fish 
 are absolutely in their senses. Such seems to have been the 
 opinion of that chief of wits, Voltaire : he is thought by many 
 continental people to have rediscovered Britain and the English 
 nation, at that period unknown to the continental nations. Wit 
 of all wits ! satirist of all satirists ! dreaded by all, even Gibbon — 
 the immortal Gribbon — was jealous of you, and tried to snarl at 
 you : he was afraid of your " Moeurs des Nations," and I do not 
 wonder at it. The easterly winds of Britain did not escape your 
 notice, though they did that of ancient Izaak. Anglers do not 
 like them, no more do trout, it would seem, nor Londoners. 
 Nevertheless, I have had, on a Scottish river, an evening's sport 
 whilst a strong east wind blew, which all but exceeded any I 
 ever saw : it was in September.* To this I shall return when 
 speaking of the Whitadder. Minnow fishing, to be entirely suc- 
 cessful in small waters, where the trout are shy, requires you to 
 carr}' a small jar, filled with fresh water and a good stock of live 
 minnows. These you use when required. When trout are shy, 
 they must be tempted with a fresh minnow, untouched, and but 
 that moment used. With these precautions you may take trout 
 in the smallest rivulets ; for, indeed, it is often there that the 
 largest trout are found. But to enjoy a day's sport, seek the 
 banks of the Whitadder, and fish that first of all trout streams 
 
 * In the Whitwater, under Shanna Bank : in '' the Boat Hole." 
 
riSH IX THE FEITII, 75 
 
 from the Blackweel to the Cauldron Linn, on a July or August 
 day, the waters full and dark, the sky cloudy, air soft. One 
 stream may suffice. Scene of my early youth ! where oft have I 
 wandered, dreaming of the future and the past, — of what I had 
 read of foreign lands, which I myself was destined one day to 
 visit. 
 
 The minnows caught by the net in the Nith were like other 
 minnows ; and they are mentioned here and described here, not 
 as being in themselves peculiar, but by indication of the small- 
 ness of the meshes of the net to warrant a behef that nothing 
 much escaped it. I was watching the exploration of a stream I 
 had never thought to have seen fished in this way ; a stream on 
 whose banks, some miles higher up,* many ingenious experiments 
 were made, or said to have been made, in order to ascertain what 
 a parr is ; experiments made by men uneducated, deeply preju- 
 diced, despisers of scientific truth. I shall show, by and by, how 
 their experiments failed. In the meantime, I should like my 
 reader, whether angler or not, to note carefully with me what 
 the net showed to be in the river Nith, from the mill-dam to the 
 Solway, or nearly so, during an autumnal day. The fish caught 
 in the net were, to the best of my recollection, minnows and 
 small flounders ; the fry of what the intelligent tacksman and 
 my own convictions decided to be that of herring, the salmon, 
 the salmon-trout, the hirling, the paiT, river trout of two kinds, — 
 one delicate to eat, with pink-coloured flesh ; the other a coarser 
 fish as to flavour, and strongly resembling the common trout of 
 the Nith, taken in the river and streams above the dam, and now 
 found in those waters in which lawyers have so often fished with 
 great success, namely, " the waters, or rivers, or parts of rivers, 
 into which the tide ebbs and flows." All thes^ on our return to 
 the inn, we examined carefully ; their external appearance, then' 
 interior anatomy, the food found in their stomachs. But in 
 the meantime, whilst watching by your banks, beauteous and 
 melancholy Nith ! the sweep of the net, examining the contents 
 of each cast, selecting therefrom what we chose — pleasant and 
 interesting conversation with the tacksman made the time so 
 
 At Drumlanriij. 
 
76 FISH AI^D FISIIITs-G IX SCOTLAXD. 
 
 short, that when, by the flowing of the tide, our fishing was 
 stopped for the day, it seemed but an hour. It was much more ; 
 and the contents of a long range of river, of an interesting cha- 
 racter, were thus unex|3ectedly disclosed to me. Here I could 
 •observe Nature as she acted, untrammelled by human hands, 
 human experiments. It was an hour I look back to with delight : 
 for to discover the unknown, a new truth in science, a new 
 relation of observed phenomena, has ever afforded me the most 
 intense pleasure. 
 
 The opinion of the tacksman amounted to this, — that min- 
 nows are simply minnows, and do not grow into any other 
 kind of fish : that parrs are parrs, hirling simply hirling, and 
 that salmon-trout and salmon are fishes perfectly distinct. But 
 of the trout found in the river, of two kinds, as already remarked, 
 he had a theory, which was this : — 
 
 At the distance of a mile or two from the south-western bank 
 of the river, where we then stood, pleasantly discussing the 
 point, there is a small lake, in which are found the so-much- 
 prized pink-coloured lake trout — that is, trout with the muscles 
 or flesh tinged like salmon. "Sometimes, no doubt," he re- 
 marked, " some of these trout make then* way into the Nith, 
 l>y the small streams through which are discharged the surplus 
 waters of the lake, and having once got into the river, they 
 cannot return to the lake, by reason of the falls in the stream." 
 This was his theory. I doubt its correctness. 
 
 In the lower part of the T^^ie (see Chapter II.), from the 
 bridge to Tyningham Sands, in East Lothian, I had already 
 found a pink-coloured red-spotted trout, of exquisite flavour- — • 
 habits and food peculiar ; and this same trout, as appeared to me, 
 exists also in the tidal portion of the Nith. Of this peculiar kind 
 of fish I have already said enough. I have elsewhere called it 
 the Estuary Trout,* meaning by this name simply to express 
 a fact that it is taken onl}^ in those parts of rivers into which 
 the tide ebbs and fiows. Besides, lake trout have dark spots, 
 whilst the trout I speak of had red spots, like those of the estuary 
 of the Tjme. I state this latter fact from memory, without a 
 reference to my notes, but I believe it will be found correct. 
 
 * MS. 
 
ANKAN. — THE SOLWAY. 77 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 THE AJfXAI^r; LOCHMABEIf; CASTLE OE EOBEET DE EEUS ; 
 t 
 
 THE YEXGIS. 
 
 The town of Annan is some three or four hours' walk from 
 Dumfries. The angler may travel it as he thinks fit. Bub 
 when arrived at Annan he is not on angling ground, properly 
 speaking ; and I bring him here merely to have a gossip with 
 him about the Solway and its stake-net fishings. It is near 
 Annan Foot that the dangerous Solway is crossed at the ebb of 
 tide. Should you purpose doing so on foot, or on horseback, be 
 sure to have a guide with you, lest the terrible " bore" of the 
 Solway overtake you in your course. AVhilst examining th& 
 stake-nets at the mouth of the Solway, I became aware how 
 dangerous it is for a stranger to wander heedlessly upon the 
 banks when abandoned by the tide. The flood returns, rushing- 
 up the deep excavations, which you do not observe when the 
 bed of the Frith is dry, but which become impassable as the 
 tide flows. We escaped climbing along a stake-net, and had a 
 sharp run for it. 
 
 There is no angling that I know of about here. Large 
 salmon and enormous bull trout are said to ascend the Annan in 
 autumn and early in winter. They are fished by poachers, and 
 salted down for winter food. I should not like to partake of 
 such food. By the condiments of salt and vinegar, they are 
 probably rendered safe, to a certain extent. I do not like to eat 
 anything found dead in the fields, nor would I touch a salmon 
 or sea trout found dead by the river side. The fish of which I 
 speak are not found dead, it is true, but in a condition wholly 
 unfit as food for man. 
 
 We had examined the stake-nets extending from Annan Foot, 
 westward towards the Frith, and had gone eastward from. 
 Annan Foot towards the Eden, to prosecute an inquiry into the 
 history of net-fishing for salmon. It was autumn, but a cold 
 north-easterly wind swept the valley of the Solway. As we 
 
7b FISH AXD FISIII??a IH^ SCOTLAND. 
 
 travelled onwards on foot by the slimy disagreeable banks, my 
 companion suddenly became ill; he conld just walk. I felt 
 inconceivably and suddenly exhausted ; but in the sight of one 
 worse than myself, I always recover so much strength, at least 
 as to be able to assist. We turned our steps towards Annan, 
 sitting down often b3^ the road-side to rest, although the distance 
 we had walked that morning was really nothing to us. As we 
 neared the town of Annan, where horse and gig, and dinner 
 awaited us, I looked westward, and beheld a singular pheno- 
 menon. ' Over the locality where I knew Dumfries stood, there 
 shot, from earth to heaven, a dark mist. I could not call it a 
 cloud, it was of considerable breath, it resembled nothing I had 
 ever seen, and the onl}^ thing I could compare it to was a vast 
 column of living insects on the wing, hovering over Dumfries, 
 and not unlike one of Turner's latest productions, when 
 despising all colour and form he attempted something original. 
 But that it was a cloud of insects was probably a delusion, or 
 optical deception at least, not impossible, but very doubtful. 
 I wish that the author of the "Historic Doubts" respecting the 
 reign of Napoleon Buonaparte had distinctly perceived, which 
 apparently he could not do, the difference between the possible 
 and impossible, the defeat of great armies by one man, and the 
 cutting through a whetstone with a razor by another,* But to 
 return to the mist over Dumfries. As I gazed until I felt a 
 m3'sterious awe, and said to my friend that I liked not its appear- 
 ance w^hatever it might forebode, we were due east of that 
 mist ; so acting on instinct, as I prefer doing when permitted, 
 the horse was ordered, and, in an hour, we were on our road to 
 Lochmaben. 
 
 On ascending the high grounds, by which we cleared the 
 valley of the Solway, my friend got better, long before we 
 reached the lovely banks of the Castle Loch of Lochmaben ; 
 and by next morning, when, rod in hand, and basket ready, we 
 prepared to fish the Annan, the whole circumstance was 
 forgotten. 
 
 Livii Opera. 
 
LOCHMABEN. — CASTLE LOCH. 7^ 
 
 On returning from the river-side to our inn, we learned what 
 startled us ; the Angel of Death had visited Dumfries the evening 
 before ; that is, on the evening following the afternoon on which 
 I had seen from Annan the fatal cloud hovering over that town. 
 Was this the cause ? What connexion had this mist with the 
 Asiatic pestilence, which swept Dumfries on that fatal night ? I 
 answer not, leaving all to judge for themselves. Of the real 
 nature of this dreadful pestilence nothing is known, nor of any- 
 other pestilence. During its visitation to Britain, I had several 
 opportunities of verifying the remark of Thucydides, whilst 
 speaking of the plague at Athens. " The physicians at first 
 could administer no relief, through utter ignorance ; nay, they 
 died the faster the closer their attendance on the sick ; and all 
 human art — first and last — was totally unavailing.!' 
 
 Behold us now at Lochmahen, and close to the Annan and 
 the AE, both good trouting streams ; but above all, as regards 
 scenery, in the neighbourhood of that beautiful lake, the Castle 
 Loch of Lochmaben ; and on its shady banks the ruined Castle 
 of " the Brus." Here, if we can trust history, lived one of the 
 great Norman robbers, called Robert de Brus. He had other 
 castles besides this one, for the original seat of the family was 
 Guisborough, in Yorkshire ; the Scotch estates came, I think, by 
 marriage. The castle has a still stronger interest than even 
 this, though Bannockburn will live long in story ; this castle 
 was one of the residences of Marie Stuart, queen of Scotland. 
 The lake, which at one time had surrounded the castle by means 
 of an artificial moat, contains fish of various kinds, but not 
 many trout. Pike abound, but chief and foremost is the 
 vengis or vendiss, thought to have been transplanted to this 
 lake by the early monks. Of this curious and beautiful fish, a 
 number of idle stories were told, until the rubbish was cleared 
 away by myself; the most curious part of its history was, that 
 it could not be tempted by any bait. Now this was true, and 
 the cause thereof was demonstrated for the first time by myself.. 
 The vendiss live on minute microscopic entomostraca, a kind of 
 shellfish, declining all other food. 
 
 Before I describe the vengis or vendiss, let me say a few words 
 about angling in the Annan. It is not a particularly good river 
 
80 FISH AND riSHIlS^G- IN- SCOTLAIs-^D. 
 
 for this purpose, being much poached and scourged by the idle 
 and profligate of the village. But it contains trout and parr, sea 
 trout and hirling, salmon and bull trout in their season ; besides 
 pike and bream, and other coarse fish. The country around is 
 primitive, and many originals live on its banks, and around the 
 lakes of Lochmaben. The vendiss, shorn of its mystery, is still 
 fished at a particular time of the year with nets, and ate in 
 season — a kind of whitebait dinner for some old-fashioned people. 
 It brings them together — suspends for an ^hour or two the 
 little animosities which all farmers and small lairds have to 
 their next neighbours — and benefits the inns. When other topics 
 fail, they talk of Johnny Armstrong and the Border robbers. 
 Abhorring clubs and whitebait dinners, I always avoided these 
 vendiss clubs, but I have often eaten the vendiss when just from 
 the lake. It is a moderately good fish to eat, but not to be 
 compared to the Loch Leven trout. The professed naturalist 
 arranges the vendiss with the family of the Corrigoni, a hard word 
 to pronounce. Vendiss is better and softer, so is vengis, of whose 
 root we know nothing. A fish of the same sort, but specifically 
 different, is abundant enough in Loch Lomond. They occur 
 also, though not of the same species, in Wales ; in North America 
 the natural family abounds. 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 OF THE riSH CALLED PAEE, BEANDLIK, F1NGEELTK'&, ETC. 
 
 This singular fish, whose natural history is still so mysterious, 
 is found only in rivers frequented by salmon ; I was about to 
 add, or by salmon-trout ; but of this I am not quite sure. In 
 the small stream which drains the area of that valley in Cleve- 
 land which once claimed for a resident proprietor the celebrated 
 Kobert de Brus — in this stream, which passes close to the village 
 
THEOEIES OF THE PAEE. 81 
 
 of Guisborough, abundance of sea trout of the largest size frequent 
 at the "due season of the year," but no parr are ever found; 
 but common trout reside permanently in the stream ; and this 
 leads me to the conclusion: 1st, that as sea trout may frequent 
 streams in which the parr is not to be found, the common parr 
 cannot then belong to the sea trout ; and 2ndly, were the parr a 
 hybrid between the sea trout and the common river trout fre- 
 quenting these streams, we should again have had the parr. 
 
 Thus we endeavour to narrow the curious and obscure question 
 of the origin of the parr, the most abundant of all our fresh-water 
 fishes of the trout kind ; of all, the least understood. 
 
 I revert to my first statement. Parr are found only in rivers 
 frequented by salmon, but not in all rivers frequented by the king 
 of fishes. Parr are not found in the Kale, in Roxburghshire, nor 
 in the Tyne, in Haddingtonshire. This I know has been denied, 
 but I am too sure of my facts to doubt them. 
 
 My esteemed friend, Mr. Young, of Invershin, informs me by 
 letter, that " parr are found in certain streams into which neither 
 salmon nor salmon trout ever penetrated." Notwithstanding 
 so high authority — the best, I believe — I must venture still to 
 doubt .The parr he means must be the parr-trout, which I have 
 often seen mistaken for parr by good and experienced anglers. It 
 seems to me that Nature herself has settled this part of the ques- 
 tion by an experiment she has made on a great scale ; the river 
 Clyde is the seat of the experiment. Below the falls of Stone 
 Byres, parr abound in incredible numbers, at least in autumn ; 
 above the falls trace the river to its source, you never will take a 
 single parr. It is the same, I believe, everywhere else ; interrupt 
 the course of the salmon, and with it the parr disappears. 
 
 The theories ojffered to explain the natural history of the parr 
 are the necessary results of our ignorance of the habits of the 
 parr ; for were these known, no theory need be offered. In the 
 absence of a knowledge of the facts, it has been conjectured; 1st, 
 that the parr is simply the young of the salmon and of the salmon- 
 trout. But the streams of Guisborough disprove this idea as 
 regards the salmon-trout, and so there need no more be said 
 about it. 
 
 That the parr is the young of the true salmon, is the oldest of 
 
 Q 
 
82 FISH AND FISHIKa I^ SCOTLAND. 
 
 all the theories. On the Annan, the fishermen universally enter- 
 tain this idea: it had prevailed for at least a hundred years. 
 They did not seem to be aware that any other theory had ever 
 been proposed. Mr. Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, as he was 
 called, made experiments to prove the theory, v/hich by many 
 were deemed satisfactory. 
 
 As early, however, as 1794, Mr. Hutchinson, of Carlisle, object- 
 ing to this view, endeavoured to prove the parr to be a species of 
 fish distinct from all others. He failed to convince anyone; 
 and for this simple reason : he never could find a female parr 
 with the roe developed; that is, a female parr, preparing to 
 deposit those ova on which must depend the perpetuity of 
 the race. Without this proof, the natural history of the parr 
 cannot be said to exist. 
 
 Mr. Hutchinson was the first to observe (1794), without 
 comprehending the meaning of what the transcendental anatomy 
 can alone explain, that " if from off the sides of a true salmon- 
 fry, or smolt, the silvery scales be carefully scraped, the young 
 fish will show all the parr markings concealed by these scales ;" 
 and besides these so-called parr-spots or bars, there will then 
 appear the dark-coloured spots peculiar to some trout, and the 
 red-coloured spots peculiar to others. From these observations, 
 implying much quickness of observation, Mr. Hutchinson drew at 
 least no false conclusions ; but this was afterwards done ; and 
 the Keith Medal was bestowed by the Eoyal Society of Edin- 
 bui'gh, on the writer of a memoir in which we find " the generic 
 characters of the embryo salmon" mistaken for specific; the 
 parr declared to be a salmon, because it has some of the 
 characters of the salmon smolt ; and the saknon declared to be 
 in its younger days a pai'r, because, in its development from the 
 ^^^ to the smolt, it displays, with all other animals, those 
 embryo forms connecting it not merely with the natural family 
 of the salmonidse, but with the zoological, and, more especially, 
 the ichthyological world, past, present, and to come. 
 
 We have seen that the objection taken by M. Valenciennes 
 to the theory I now speak of, rested mainly on the dentition of 
 the parr. He thinks that natural history characters can with 
 propriety be taken only from the adult individual of each 
 
M. TALEXCIENNES. 83 
 
 species. But this just remark does not at all inform us wliat 
 the fish we call^arr and the French tacon is. If the paiT and 
 tacon be distinct species of trout, the female with fully developed 
 roe ought to exist. Now this has not been shown. It has, 
 indeed, been stated, that a female parr with the roe well developed 
 has been seen, though very rarely. Seeing the extreme rarity* of 
 such a phenomenon, it would have been desirable to have pre- 
 served the specimen, submitting it to scientific men. A female 
 mule has been known to produce a colt ; it is just possible ; 
 but the phenomenon is almost as rare as " birds with four legs, 
 and griffins." But were it even true, it would not prove the 
 parr to be a salmon. 
 
 The question seems to be a narrow one, but, in fact, it is 
 not so. What are the facts ? What the conjectures ? What the 
 difficulties ? At a certain time of the year, we find universally, 
 in rivers frequented by salmon and sea trout, hut in none else, 
 a little silvery fish, gregarious, in vast numbers, which nobody 
 doubts being a young salmon.f This is in the end of April and 
 early in May ; no such fish are to be found in any river at any 
 other time of the year. Of these 3^oung salmon, I have 
 examined hundreds, and have found no milt nor roe in the slightest 
 degree altered, or showing any appearance that it had ever been 
 so ; these organs were constantly at their minimum. I wish the 
 reader particularly to note this. These young salmon leave in 
 a body for the ocean, and so disappear. Some of them return, 
 we are assm-ed by the experimentalists, in a few weeks, grown 
 into large grilses of several pounds, weight. Now, I think it 
 most probable, that all do not return so early and so well grown, 
 but that some may ascend the rivers in August and September, 
 not more than half-a-pound weight : whilst others which had 
 descended very early, so soon perhaps as February, may come 
 up early in March ; but this is mere conjecture, and I prefer 
 viewing these anomalous fishes as the young of the hirling. To 
 return to facts. 
 
 After the fry, as salmon smolts have left the rivers in May, 
 there remain in the main stream and its tributaries innumerable 
 
 Shaw. t Denied by Mr. Young alone. 
 
 g2 
 
84 FISH AND FISHING IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 fish of a doubtful character called parr. They may be caught 
 with the ordinary bait for trout in every stream and pool — 
 from the sources, for example, of the Tweed to its junction with 
 the sea ; they were taken with the net in the tidal part of the 
 Nith, in my presence, and in numbers, in August and September ; 
 I have caught them in the rivers at all times of the year ; they 
 vary in size from two and a-half or two inches to six or seven, 
 and their growth seems independent of any season. But that 
 which is most remarkable, and is without an example in zoology, 
 is, that early in summer, and from this time to February and 
 March, many of the males of these dubious fishes have the milt 
 exceedingly developed ; the roe in the female remaining uniformly 
 and v/ithout any exception at its minimum. By supposing that 
 these dubious fish with emhryonic markings are young salmon, 
 not yet grown into smolts, or, in other terms, which have not as 
 yet laid aside their embryonic colouring and characteristics, we 
 simply add other enigmas to those already existing. For how 
 comes it, that being fully as large as the smolt, they have not 
 left with it ? How comes it, that whilst still so young (not being 
 even as yet smolts), the male should have the milt enormously 
 developed, not only whilst in this state, that is, before he has 
 even lecome a smolt, but long before the adult salmon itself? 
 For the male parr has the milt fully developed quite as frequently 
 in Juty and August as in November and December. The fact is, 
 that these facts, for they are such, as I shall presently prove, not 
 merely upset the existing theories, but show that the question of 
 the parr is one involving the highest questions in animal ph^^sio- 
 logy, and explicable, in all probability, only by an appeal to the 
 laws regulating hybridism and transcendentalism in animal life. 
 
 It has been said that parrs have been placed in ponds, and have 
 grown into salmon. That they may grow into fish strongly 
 resembling salmon, I am not disposed to doubt, although I do 
 not feel quite sure that the experiment has ever been fairly 
 made ; but this does not prove them to be true salmon. The mule 
 grows up to something strongly resembling a horse. The fish 
 grown from parr is found to be prolific for at least one genera- 
 tion, " which could not be were it a hybrid, or the parr from 
 which it grew, a hybrid." Now those who argue thus, take for 
 
GEEAT SIZE OF THE MILT IK THE MALE PARK. 85 
 
 granted that the lavv3 of hybridity, in all animals^ correspond 
 strictly with what happens in the horse and ass. I am sure 
 that no educated man will expect me to argue with persons who 
 hold such views. 
 
 Lastly, it is well known, that although in the female parr, at 
 no time is the roe developed, yet in the male at certain, or 
 rather, as I shall show, at uncertain periods of the year, the 
 milt suddenly increases to a size disproportionate to the fish. 
 With the milt of this fish, some five or six inches in length, the 
 eggs of the true full-grown salmon have been artificially fecun- 
 dated ; the product being true salmon. 
 
 In such experiments I see nothing remarkable. They do not 
 prove the male parr to be a salmon. On the contrary, the growth 
 of the milt in the parr is an unnatural and abnormal phenomenon, 
 proving directly the contrary, proving it not to be the true 
 salmon. All the world knows that towards the end of April, 
 and beginning of May, the salmon smolt, varying from five 
 to six inches in length, often larger than any parr, abounds in 
 salmon rivers ; but no one ever saw the milt or roe developed in 
 these smolts. How comes it, then, that in the parr, if a salmon, 
 the milt should be developed a year before it becomes a smolt ? 
 It is singular enough that in parr with the milt thus developed, 
 we do not find that the individual has deteriorated in quality as 
 is the case in other fish similarly situated. True, it may be said 
 that this is not the period for the growth of the milt ; but I 
 shall show presently that this remark does not apply to the parr, 
 which shows the milt developed at seasons of the year in which 
 no salmon is ever found with these organs progressing towards 
 a fecundating condition. 
 
 The phenomenon then is an abnormal and irregular one, proving 
 the parr to belong to no peculiar species of fish, but a hybrid of 
 several sorts ; that the word parr is, in fact, a generic term for 
 the young of several species of the salmonidse, of which some 
 are regular and constant, others irregular and hybrid. 
 
 FUETHEB CONTEIBUTIOFS TO THE I^^ATUEAL HISTORY OE 
 THE PARR. 
 
 Is it worth while writing the history of an animal which 
 perhaps exists not as a distinct species ? In this case, I thmk it 
 
86 PISH AXD FISHING ITf SCOTLAND. 
 
 is. Many facts still remain wholly unexplained in the history 
 of the parr ; I shall here state those which have come within my 
 own knowledge. 
 
 The parr, under a variety of names, is found in most of the 
 rivers of Great Britain, Ireland, and perhaps also of France and 
 Germany, frequented hy salmon. It seldom exceeds nine inches 
 in length. The parr-trout, and the young of salmon, and of sea 
 trout, are often mistaken for the parr. 
 
 In its dentition it resembles the trout, having maxillary^ 
 intermaxillary, mandibular, lingual, palatine, and vomerine teeth. 
 These last are in two interrupted or alternating rows, as in the 
 trout ; they are scarcely so numerous, and occasionalh' they 
 show a disposition to carry transverse teeth on the forepart 
 (chevron) of the vomer, which no true trout does. In this, and 
 in its silvery scales and bluish tinge, it shows its partly salmon 
 parentage. 
 
 In the parr the spleen is oval and small, triangular in the trout 
 of the same size, and somewhat larger : it is triangular also in 
 the salmon and sea trout. 
 
 Parr may be taken during every month of the year in the 
 tributaries and streams which form the som'ces of the Tweed. 
 They are found throughout the year in the Annan and its 
 feeders. If the view I take of the smolt or salmon-fry be cor- 
 rect, namely, that on quitting the gravel they do not remain 
 longer than from three to five weeks in the fresh-water rivers, 
 then the parr cannot be the same as that fry, since they are 
 found at all times of the year in the rivers and streams. But if 
 incorrect, the fry might be found in the rivers, imperfectly 
 developed, and resembling parr and trout in their habits and 
 external and internal characters. Let us now consider this first 
 point : let us suppose that 3^oung salmon may really remain in 
 the rivers, in one form or another, from about the beginning of 
 April of one year to the beginning of May of the year foUovvdng, 
 should we expect to find, in anj'- pure species of fish, a phenomenon 
 so extraordinary as the development of the milt, in a great 
 majority of cases, at times of the year when the fully grown fish 
 shows no such state, the roe of the female in the meantime 
 remaining imiformly at its minimum ? 
 
rOTTND AT ALL TIMES OP THE TEAR IN EIVEES. 87 
 
 If we admit tlie parr to be a true salmon, all these contradic- 
 tory laws must be applied to him : here are the proofs. 
 
 I. Examine, as I have done, hundreds and hundreds of the true 
 salmon smolt, whilst descending the rivers, sparkling with their 
 silvery scales, and obviously " salmon in miniature," towards 
 the ocean ; and the roe and the milt will constantly be found at 
 their inmimum ; that is, mere threads. And yet, after all these 
 have left the river for the ocean, we almost immediately find 
 the parr with the milt or male organs in the highest state of 
 development. If these were smolts not yet sufficiently grown, 
 how comes it that their brothers of a year older growth, as is 
 said, have left the river with the milt at its minimum, leaving 
 behind them their younger brothers with the same organ at its 
 
 maximum 
 
 It is worthy, moreover, of observation, as showing the irregu- 
 larity of the phenomena as respects the parr, that even in Decem- 
 ber all male parr have not the milt developed, but only a certain 
 number. 
 
 1st. On the 30th July, 1832, six parr were caught with the 
 artificial fly, at Romano Bridge, on the Lyne, a tributary of the 
 Tweed. They were of the usual size, averaging probably five 
 inches. All were males, with the milts large, and two and a 
 quarter inches in length. Do we find salmon usually with the 
 milt large in July ? 
 
 2nd. At the Crook (on Tweed side), on the 31st of July, that 
 is, next day, often fish taken with the artificial fly, six were parrs; 
 they were much in the same state as the above. 
 
 3rd. Of thirteen parrs caught on the 3rd of September, in the 
 Tweed, between Bield Bridge and Palnoudie, two only were 
 females ; the rest were males. Some were eight and a-half 
 inches long, others only four or five. In the larger the milts 
 were enormously developed. This was on the 3rd September, so 
 that if they were salmon they had the advantage of unheard-of 
 precocity, being advanced by many months before the full-grown 
 salmon. 
 
 I had some parr, twenty-four in all, caught for me in the AE, 
 a tributary of the Annan. This was on the 13th December. Of 
 these, fourteen were female parr ; they were all caught with a 
 
88 FISH AND FISHING IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 small red worm. The average length of these parr was five and 
 a-half inches ; the smallest three inches. The roe in all, without 
 any exception, was at its minimum. 
 
 Of the other ten males, caught on the same day, in the same 
 place, some had the milt large and vascular, but not so much so 
 as I have seen in July and August. 
 
 In four of these ten the milt was at its minimum, having 
 undergone no changes. 
 
 For the establishment and identification of distinct species, it 
 may freely be admitted, that the anatomical method is at once 
 the safest and the best ; and, when combined with the external 
 characters of the grown individual, leaves nothing to be desired. 
 But the case is somewhat different, and the method less valuable 
 in a practical sense, when applied to the young, and still more so 
 to the hybrid, which I consider the parr to be. 
 
 The dentition, for example, seems to be the same in the parr, 
 smolt, and trout. I use the word seems, for I am not aware of 
 any minute anatomical inquiries having been made on this point 
 by others, and I cannot find, amongst the mass of notes before 
 me, the memoranda made at various times by my brother and 
 myself. The teeth of the salmonidse, as well as of most fishes, 
 are of uniform character, and present no such distinctions as 
 molar, incisor, and canine, by which we are enabled so clearly 
 and easily to note the various species of mammals. But they 
 are carried on a greater number of bones, and from this specific 
 characters may be deduced. In the having maxillary, intermax- 
 illary, mandibular, palatine, and vomerine teeth, all the salmonidse 
 agree ; but they differ when adult in respect of the number and 
 arrangement of the vomerine. 
 
 In the common trout, the vomerine teeth are abundant (20) 
 are arranged in two interrupted rows, with the points turned 
 outwards, neither being precisely mesial. Many of the finest 
 of this species of trout have no transverse vomerine teeth, or, at 
 least, no row entitled to that name ; but others have : in certain 
 sea trout, at least, the vomerine system of teeth consists in 
 a few apparently mesial teeth, arranged in a single row, and a 
 transverse row on the chevron, whilst in the true salmon the 
 mesial teeth are still fewer, or absent, and the transverse row 
 still more distinct. 
 
AlfATOMT or THE PAEE. 89 
 
 But circumstances necessarily render the characteristics of 
 dentition inapplicable in the case of the parr. For, 1st., it 
 seems all but certain that the smolt and parr have a dentition 
 neither resembling the adult trout nor adult salmon, but uniting 
 the features of both : a type of itself. 2nd. The dentition is 
 a characteristic not altogether to be depended on, not from any 
 error in itself, but from the want of extended research.* 
 
 Anxious to investigate the subject of the dentition of the parr 
 and of the smolt, I wrote to my friend, Mr. Young, of Invershin, 
 to furnish me with a few. The results will be given below. 
 
 II. For obvious reasons, the characteristics of species derived 
 from the strength of the head and jaws, of the respiratory appa- 
 ratus, or gills and gill-covers, and of the locomotive organs, the 
 fins, are much less distinct, much less to be depended on, in the 
 young and imperfectly developed animal than in the adult. In 
 this direction, therefore, I have not sought for any. The same 
 remark applies to the system of colouration of the surface, which, 
 in the adult, when combined with other natural history cha- 
 racters, and backed by the anatomical history of the animal, 
 furnishes valuable discriminations of species, but in the young 
 or imperfectly grown individuals is of little real value. 
 
 III. The number of spines composing the tins seems to me a 
 means of assisting in the determination of species. Comparing, 
 then,the undoubted parr and smolt, of the same size,taken from the 
 same river, but not at the same time, the result was as follows : 
 
 Perfect. Imperfect. Perfect. Imperfect. 
 
 Pectoral fin Parr 11 3 Smolt 13 
 
 Ventral fin „ 8 2 „ 9 
 
 Caudal fin „ 17 9 „ 19 12 
 
 Dorsal fin „ 11 4 „ 10 1 
 
 Analfin „ 8 3 „ 10 3 
 
 By imperfect ray or spine is meant merely those scarcely 
 annulated rays which do not bifurcate, and do not reach the 
 margin of the fin. The others bifurcate. The memorandum 
 giving the above details adds other particulars. The speci- 
 men was a male, and the spleen measured 1| by f . I think 
 
 See the chapter on the dentition of the Salmonidee. 
 
90 riSH AKD Fisnii?"G i-^ scotlai^^d. 
 
 that this remark has a reference to the parr. The sex of 
 the smolt is not mentioned. The length of the parr was 7-| 
 inches ; girth, 4^ ; breadth, 1|. It was caught in the Tweed 
 on the 1st June. The stomach was gorged wdth the food of the 
 common trout. 
 
 Mr. Hutchinson, of Carlisle, long ago counted and com- 
 pared the spines or rays of the fins of the parr with the smolt ; 
 and he states them to be as follows : — 
 
 In the Smolt. In the Parr. 
 
 Pectoral 12 13 
 
 Ventral 8 9 
 
 Anal 10 8 
 
 Dorsal 12 
 
 Parr will occasionally disappear for years from a river. In 
 July, 1832, of twenty -two dozen of trout taken in one day from 
 the Whitwater, there was not a parr. They had some years 
 before abounded. 
 
 The term parr, then, is a generic term, applicable to several 
 kinds of fish. The young of the sea trout, for example, like 
 that of the salmon when it first leaves the gravel, and until it 
 undergoes its metamorphosis as to colouration of the surface, 
 resembles, no doubt, like the smolt or young salmon, the fish 
 called parr. Its growth I know to be rapid. In a few weeks it 
 loses its parr markings, and other embr3ronic characters, and 
 makes for the sea. 
 
 This sufficiently curious fact, namely, that the young of the 
 sea trout, in the smolt state, preparing to descend to the sea, 
 resemble strictly the smolt of the true salmon, shows the 
 caution required in making observations on the imperfectly 
 developed animal, their peculiar colouration of numerous dark 
 spots and specific dentition not appearing until they have resided 
 for some time in the ocean. 
 
 An ingenious person and pleasant author* has suggested some 
 theories respecting the nature of the parr, and the generation of 
 the salmon (subjects intimately connected with each other), 
 which merit a passing notice. 
 
 * Mr. Stoddart, in his " Manual of Anglers. 
 
NEW THEOEr OF THE PAER. 91 
 
 He suggests that the parr is simply a young salmon ; that it 
 remains a year in the river after leaving the gravel, or, in other 
 words, adopts the views, in this last point, of Mr. Young, of 
 Invershin: — that on assuming the silvery dress it migrates 
 towards the sea with the spawning fish of that year, and that 
 this is the reason why no parr are caught in Teviot and Tweed 
 during the months of April and May, they having all assumed 
 the smolt colouring. But as the parr, meaning young salmon of 
 the present year, begin to grow, they naturally reappear in the 
 rivers in June, July, &c. ; continuing to grow until next 
 spring, when they also leave as smolts. To meet other 
 difficulties, Mr. S. conjectures — for all is conjecture here — that 
 it is when the young are in the parr form that the fecundating 
 act takes place ; the roe of the female parr being impregnated by 
 the male when the ova are at their minimum of development, the 
 milt of the parr being then at its maximum ; and that the 
 presence of the male full-gro^vn salmon, at the moment the 
 grown female deposits the ova in the spawning trough, is an 
 accidental " circumstance, and not at all essential to secure the 
 forthcoming brood of smolts." 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to add that these ingenious views are 
 based neither on experiment nor observation. They seem merely 
 like discoveries in Egyptian hieroglyphics, to solve one enigma 
 by creating a dozen new ones, still more perplexing to chrono- 
 logists. 
 
 I have already remarked that parr seem to desert some rivers, 
 for a time at least, from causes as yet unknown. Thus, in July, 
 of twenty -two dozen trout caught in the Whitwater near Mill- 
 know, there was not a single parr. On the other hand, in some 
 rivers they are most abundant nearly at all times. In August, 
 1832, four hours' very careful fishing with fly and worm pro- 
 duced nothing but forty-three parrs ; twenty-four males, and 
 nineteen females. The parr has a layer of fat along the tract of 
 the intestine, which is not present in the trout or salmon. 
 They are more tenacious of life than the smolt, and stiffen 
 readily in the basket. The spleen is oval and small in the parr ; 
 triangular in the trout and salmon. 
 
 On the 29th May, in the Eddlestone, about a mile from 
 
92 FISH Al!iJ) nSHIIs^G lUf SCOTLATfD. 
 
 the Tweed, of twenty-eight fish caught with the fly, ten were parr. 
 There were no smolts to be seen, although ten days before the 
 stream was full of them, all nearly of a length, i. e., about four 
 inches. On the 1st June, that is three days afterwards, parr 
 fwere taken in the Tweed measuring 7|- inches, their brethren of 
 our inches having in the meantime become smolts, and fled to 
 the ocean. I venture to call Mr. Stoddart's attention to these 
 facts. Mr. Stoddart is, I understand, a poet. 
 
 A Tweed parr (June 1st, 1832) gave the following dimensions 
 and natural history characters : 
 
 Inches. 
 
 Length from snout to fork of tail .7f 
 
 Girth 41 
 
 Breadth If 
 
 Perfect. Imperfect. 
 
 Pectoral fins, rays — each 11 3 
 
 Ventral 8 2 
 
 Caudal 17 9 
 
 Dorsal 11 4 
 
 Anal 8 3 
 
 Compared with a smolt or salmon-fry : 
 
 Pectoral 13 
 
 Ventral 9 
 
 Caudal 19 12 
 
 Dorsal 10, 1 
 
 Anal 10 3 
 
 The distinction of perfect and imperfect rays or spines is based 
 on this : by perfect is meant a spine which has one root, but 
 which in a short time divides into two, almost in the manner of 
 a feather ; these alternately form the terminating margin of the 
 fin. Whereas, the spines I have called imperfect are single 
 throughout, scarcely annulated, and do not reach the terminating 
 margin of the fin. 
 
 This parr was a male ; the stomach gorged with common trout 
 food, as beetles, &c., and the spleen was 1-gin. by f . 
 
 I had some parr fished for in the AE, a tributary of the Annan, 
 on the 13th December; fourteen female parr were caught with a 
 small red worm. The average length of these parr was five and 
 
THE TEUE PAEB NEYEE BEEN EXPEEIMENTED OX. 93 
 
 a-half inches ; the smallest three inches. The roe in all, without 
 exception, in the state it is usually found in the parr ; that is, in 
 no way developed. 
 
 There were ten males caught at the same time ; some of the 
 milts were large and vascular, but not so much so as those seen 
 there in August. In four of these males the milt was not developed. 
 Upon the whole, these parr in December are in much the same 
 condition in this respect as in August. 
 
 Some observations show a disproportion of males to females, 
 the former being the more numerous. Of thirteen caught on 
 the 3rd September in the Tweed, between Bield Bridge and 
 Palnoudie, two only were females, the rest males ; some were 
 eight and a-half inches long, others only four or live. In the 
 largest the milts were enormously developed. This was on the 
 3rd September. 
 
 After all the true salmon-fry have left the river for the ocean, 
 the parrs abound, no matter which be the season of the year. 
 Thus I found them in the Lyne (a branch of the Tweed), at 
 at Romano Bridge, on the 30th July. Of six caught, all were 
 males, with milts two and a-quarter inches long. At the Crook, 
 on the 31st, often fish caught, six were parrs. In August, in the 
 Annan, near Lochmaben, nothing was taken with the fly but 
 parrs. Nevertheless the fishermen of the district were all of 
 opinion that these parrs were merely young salmon. 
 
 It is worthy of observation that no direct experiments have 
 ever been made proving the parr to be a salmon. These would 
 require to be made with great care, and frequently repeated ; for 
 the accidental or occasional growth of a male or female parr to a 
 salmon size, no more proves the parr to be a true salmon than a 
 similar occurrence taking place in the mule would prove that 
 animal to be a horse. 
 
 I have notes of thirteen parr caught in the Tweed, between, 
 the Bield and Palnoudie, and examined on the 3rd September ; 
 of these only two were female in the usual state as to the roe ; 
 of the males, some had the milt enormously developed. They 
 varied in length from four to eight and a-half inches. They were 
 the largest parr I had ever seen. 
 
 Parr may be found in the rivers they frequent, from near their 
 
94 FISH AND riSHlNa IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 sources to the junction with the sea. Throughout the whole 
 range they uniformly take the same food, that is, the food of the 
 common trout. 
 
 I have it recorded amongst my notes that parr, about two and 
 a-half inches long, are very numerous in March in the Annan, as 
 far up as Hallheaths. Many of these are probably young salmon, 
 mistaken for parrs. 
 
 During the course of last summer, I received from my friend, 
 Mr. Young, of Invershin, a present of five small fishes, four of 
 which he considered to be smolts, and one a parr.* On examining 
 these with some care, I found that in some the cseca w^ere in two 
 rows ; in others, in three ; about fifty-two in all. The vomerine 
 teeth presented a double interrupted mesial row (as in the trout), 
 var^dng from sixteen to twenty-four. In some, the transverse 
 teeth on the chevron were distinct ; but in others this could not 
 be determined: or, at all events, the transverse row present did 
 not extend beyond the range of the mesial rows. In the specimen 
 which Mr. Young considers to be a parr, I found the vomerine 
 teeth as follows : 
 
 Mesial in a double row and alter- 
 nating, as in trout ... 8 — 8 = 16 
 
 Anteriorly on the chevron or transverse teeth . . 4 
 
 20 
 
 Audi alteram partem ; for this reason I subjoin a letter addressed 
 to a kind friend — one, if I recollect right, of my former students ; 
 also one from my esteemed friend of Invershin : 
 
 " My dear John, — I have to acknowledge the receipt of your 
 letter, and would have answered the sam€ ere this had not my 
 shooting excursions interfered more or less. However, regarding 
 the parr and salmon, I have studied the subject much, and indeed 
 have assisted Mr. Gillom with his experiments, closely, ever since 
 1838, and neither of us entertain the slightest doubt but that 
 the parr becomes salmon the third year after being spawned. 
 
 " We conduct our experiments in the following manner : — A 
 
 * Mr. Young considers the parr as a distinct species of trout. The ob- 
 jections to this view are solid and innumerable. 
 
EXPEEIMENTS ON THE SALMON SMOLT. 95 
 
 large tank is formed close on the bank of the Dee, through which 
 part of that water has a free ingress and egress ; and the tank is 
 so constructed by machinery and wire netting at each end, that 
 when the Dee rises the water in the tank rises also, and vice 
 versa. Into this tank we put the fry, at the same time knowing 
 it to be the salmon-fry by observing the old salmon deposit theii* 
 spawn, which we can do at any time during the spawning season. 
 The young fry, when put into the tank, are about half an inch 
 long, and have at that time the pea attached to their belly. The 
 first year they do not assume much of the parr, but the second 
 year they are decidedly so, hj hundreds of comparisons with parr 
 taken out of the Dee, and the third year they become what we 
 call the young salmon-fry, and from four to five inches long, and 
 quite change their colom* from the parr to a silvery one ; at this 
 stage they go down to the salt water. Were we to confine them 
 longer than the third year, by man}" experiments, they fall very 
 much off. Another proof of the parr being the young salmon is, 
 that no man ever saw a parr higher up a river than where a salmon 
 can go. 
 
 " Gillom tells me his first experiments were in 1835-6. In that 
 year he put fry into an inland lake ; they did very well until the 
 third year, and then fell off, and eventually perished. He also 
 tells me that he would not believe the parr to be young salmon 
 until he proved it by his own experiments. 
 
 " Now I doubt much if you can make out this hurried scrawl ; 
 but if you can I hope it will tend to throw some light on the 
 subject ; if so, let me hear from you. 
 
 " Your family are well. I had the pleasure to sup in company 
 with your father last evening. My wife joins me in kind regards 
 to you, and believe me, 
 
 " Yours sincerely, 
 
 " A. Hannat. 
 
 ^'Kirkcudbright, 18th Nov. 1841." 
 
 " Invershin, Bonar Bridge, Aug. 9th, 1852. 
 " My dear sir, — I duly received your favour of the 3rd instant, 
 and will be always happy to hear from you. You are right with 
 regard to the time the salmon-fry remain in the river after 
 
96 FTSH A?TD FISHIKG IN SOOTLAlfD. 
 
 rising from the spawning bed. They remain twelve months, 
 and not two years, as your Edinburgh section of naturaUsts tried 
 to cram do\Vn our throats ; but that theory has now exploded, 
 and the Keith medal ought to be bestowed on some more correct 
 investigator. 
 
 " But observe, that the whale smolts do not go down with 
 the early spring floods; the part of them then twelve months 
 old go down as the floods happen, but there are many of them 
 from eight to twelve months old that go down in the course of 
 the summer, and as soon as they arrive at the age of emigra- 
 tion. To explain the theory better, I may mention that we 
 have salmon spawning in the rivers at all times from the middle 
 of September to the middle of the following March ; some few 
 may be earlier and later than these periods, but we see them at 
 all times within that space ; the seed deposited during that time 
 remains among the gravel for the space of from 100 to 140 
 days, according to the temperature of the water, and, at all 
 events, we have the seeds hatching and rising from the beds at 
 all times during six months, and of course must have the smolts 
 going down at all times during six months, and grilses returning 
 at all times during six months. But the great throng of spawn- 
 ing is from the middle of November to the middle of December, 
 therefore the great majority of the fry are, according to the 
 temperature, a year old in April and May, which clearly accounts 
 for the great majority of smolts going down in these months ; 
 from the time the smolts go down, until they return grilses, is 
 two months ; sometimes in the latter half of June, and at 
 other times July is the great throng of the grilses, that being 
 exactly two months from the time the great throng of the 
 smolts go down. The spawning begins about the middle of 
 September, with a few pairs ; they get on more and more up to 
 the middle of November, when the great number spawn up to 
 the middle of December, when they then fall off in numbers nearly 
 in proportion to the increase, until the middle of March, which 
 fully accounts for the time, and numbers of smolts going down 
 dming six months every year. It may be that they spawn and 
 go down throughout a longer period than that, but the above 
 we see yearly, in the spawning, smolts going down and grilses 
 returning. 
 
PAEE SAID TO BE FOUIfD WKEEE THEEE AEE NO SALMON. 97 
 
 The fry, from the age of two months (that is the time they 
 are fully formed with fins, complete) to the age of ten months, 
 have transverse bars, or, as they are sometimes called, finger 
 marks, very much resembling the cross-bars on a small full- 
 grown fish, called the parr ; and for many years the fry and the parr 
 were confounded with one another. The greatest distinguishing 
 mark between the two is, that the parr has fins in proportion to 
 the fish, while the salmon-fry have fins uncommonly large for 
 the size of the fish. The parr is to be found in salmon rivers, 
 and also in rivers where salmon have no access. They were to 
 be seen in hundreds in the rivers that run into and feed Loch- 
 shin, previous to the time that we planted these rivers with 
 salmon, and until we did that there was never a salmon seen in 
 these rivers, but now they go there yearly, and the salmon-fry 
 and parr are both to be seen in the rivers ; there is now only 
 the httle river Grudy that runs into the river Shin, where 
 salmon have never passed a fall on that river, and where parr are 
 yet above that fall. At some time, when the river gets low, I 
 will get a few for you, as I am also to do for Mr. Yarrel, but am 
 sure you can easily get them in any English river with a small 
 fly, as you are perfectly acquainted with them, when I hope you 
 will write something on the subject. 
 
 I have not been in any correspondence with the Royal Society 
 for a long time. You are aware that they expressed the two 
 year old opinion, and that I have reduced that system to nothing, 
 therefore such clever men do not like to be refuted, but it 
 would be a public benefit were you to bring the subject before 
 some naturalists there. You will see a full set of artificial- 
 bred salmon, that I sent to the Ashmolean Society, Oxford, 
 which will enable you to see the thing more clearly. 
 
 I remain, ever yours truly, A. Young. 
 
 K. Knox, Esq., M.D. 
 
 At page 63 of my MS. Journal, I find that, at my request, my 
 esteemed friend, Mr. Harkness, of Lochmaben, fished the river 
 AE for me with bait (a small red worm), and the Castle Loch 
 with a net, sending me the products. From the AE were taken 
 fourteen female parr and ten male ditto, also one parr-trout, 
 
 H 
 
98 riSH AND FISHING IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 eleven inches long. The longest parr was seven inches, the 
 smallest three, the average five-and-a-half. In the female parr 
 the ova were distinct, but quite unaltered ; in some of the male, 
 the milts were of considerable size, in others not developed. 
 Upon the whole, the parr were much in the condition I had found 
 them in the Tweed, in August and September. The stomachs of 
 these parr were full of insects. The river and lake were fished 
 for me in December. 
 
 END OE PART I. 
 
PART II. 
 
 THE TWEED AND ITS TEIBUTARIES. 
 
 ■ The groves of sweet myrtles let foreign lands reckon. 
 Where bright beaming summers exalt the perfume : 
 Far dearer to me yon lone glen of Greenbrecken, 
 With the burn stealing under the long yellow broom." 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Scotland is essentially a mountainous and a hilly country. 
 Wild and desolate mountain ranges, clothed with heath, but 
 devoid of trees, occupy the greater part even of the south of 
 Scotland. The sources of the Clyde, the Annan, and the Tweed, 
 and of their tributaries, point out the more elevated parts of this 
 region, extending from west to east, from Earleston's Hill to 
 Cockburn's Path ; a vast circuit of many miles, including the 
 sources of Tweed's northern tributaries. On the south, Tweed, 
 the prince of all angling rivers, drains the northern slopes of 
 the Cheviots, receiving from these slopes many noble angling 
 streams. 
 
 I shall speak of those on the northern side first, and describe 
 the tributaries before discoursmg the angling qualities of the 
 main stream itself, to which indeed I shall merely allude. At or 
 near the emhoucJncres of the smaller streams which feed it^ 
 each river may be said to have its own angling station ; that 
 is, the point from which it may be most conveniently fished ; 
 and in this respect many of the streams may be further subdi- 
 vided into upper and lower waters, generally sufficiently distinct. 
 These localities or head-quarters of the angler are, for the Gala, 
 Torsonse and Noble House ; for the Leader, the Inn of Soutra 
 Leader and Leader Foot ; for the Blackadder, Dunse and Green* 
 law ; for the Whitadder (Upper Waters), The Cottage, six miles. 
 
 h2 
 
100 riSH A1<(D FISHIlffa IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 from Dunse ; Edi'on and Allan Bank or Chirnside are tlie sta- 
 tions whence may be most conveniently fished the lower waters 
 of the same river. For Talla and Tweed, the Crook and Beild 
 offer favourite shelter and resting-places for the angler, where, 
 reposing for the evening, he may enjoy from the windows of his 
 own inn a sight of Tweed's crystal stream. At Peebles, the 
 angler may fish the Lyne, and Tweed, and Manor Waters ; the 
 Eddlestone is also close at hand ; at Inverleithen he commands 
 the Tweed itself, the Leithen, and many other excellent trouting 
 streams ; lower down is the Inn of Clovenford, a good head- 
 quarters for this part of the Tweed. Even Galashiels and 
 Selkirk are still within reach of good fishing-ground; from 
 the Gordon Arms and the Cottage between the lakes, the angler 
 commands the Yarrow, and the lakes of St. Mary's, and the 
 Loch of the Lows. To fish Loch Skene, it is best to sleep at 
 the Birchen Hill, but it may be reached from the Beatock, from 
 Moffat, and from the Gordon Arms. Kelso is an excellent sta- 
 tion from which the angler may fish the Eden, the Teviot, and 
 the Tweed, but to fish with success the Kale, College and Beau- 
 mont waters, he should take his station at Town Yetholm, and 
 at a village on the Kale. The Glen may be fished from Wooler 
 and the Till at several points on the road to Corhill. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EDDLESTONE W^ATEK — THE LYNE. 
 
 The Eddlestone, which runs from the north, and joins the 
 Tweed near Peebles, is a good angling stream, when taken in the 
 right mood. The village of Eddlestone is the best starting 
 point, either towards the source of the river or towards the 
 Tweed. During heavy rains or floods, like all streams joining a 
 larger one, the fish from this latter rush up the smaller stream, 
 and may be taken in any numbers. At those times, when the 
 
THE EDDLESTONE — THE LTNE. 101 
 
 waters are dark and beginning to fall, little skill is required. A 
 red hackle, with or without wings, is the taking bait, or a minnow 
 fresli or even salted. I have no experience of the artificial minnow, 
 but could imagine readily that it may often answer. 
 
 In the Eddlestone are to be found the common trout of both 
 kinds, the parr, the smolt or fry, in April and May, and no doubt 
 towards the close of the year, salmon and sea trout. 
 
 The Eddlestone will conduct the angler to the Tweed, near 
 Peebles, and there he will probably rest for the evening. A 
 short walk up the Tweed will repay the toil, if toil it can be 
 called. The Nidpath Castle in ruins is here; an old holding of 
 the ancient baronial robbers. There is also good angling here : 
 opposite the castle I caught my first trout, whilst carelessly 
 sauntering along and trailing after me the line in the river. The 
 fly was a red hackle, which tempted a noble trout nearly two 
 pounds in weight. 
 
 From this spot the angler may proceed upwards to fish theLyne, 
 a good anghng stream, which joins the Tweed several miles higher 
 up : but this stream is more conveniently fished from Noble 
 House, and from a village situated close to the river itself. It 
 is called Romano Bridge, and should he find the waters in good 
 order, I know of few better streams. 
 
 THE LYNE. 
 
 The river Lyne runs through a lonely and somewhat narrow 
 valley, shut in by lofty hills clothed with verdure. The country 
 is in fact a great sheep walk. It contains both kinds of trout 
 common to the rivers of Scotland, that is, the common red-spotted 
 trout, and the trout which, having parr markings even in the adult 
 state, I shall call the parr- trout. But besides these, the true parr 
 is found in abundance ; and, in their due season, salmon and sea 
 trout, and the smolts of both, fall to the lot of the experienced and 
 determined angler. 
 
 In a small stream, which, like a mill race, joins the Lyne a mile 
 or two below the bridge, the pink-coloured, red-spotted trout is 
 said to be found. I fished it, but the day was not favourable. 
 I do not, however, doubt the fact. 
 
 Whilst fishing the Lyne, near the bridge, some years ago, I 
 
102 FISH AI^D FISHIls'G IN SCOTLAIs'D. 
 
 saw approaching me a singular figure, in the human shape, how- 
 ever ; he had on a seaman's cap Hned with fur, and wore a long 
 blue coat of coarse duffle, girded with a black leather belt sup- 
 porting a fishing basket ; in his hand were a rod and tackle. 
 I could see at a glance that he was an experienced real angler. 
 E-esolving to speak to him, I stood still as he approached, 
 and was saluted in a ver}^ friendly way by name. Known to 
 all the world, I took it for granted that he was some one 
 who had met me somewhere : not so ; he tm'ned out to be 
 an ancient schoolfellow. I learned his history in the village ; 
 he was a hermit and a miser, and resided m a very small 
 thatched mud-built cottage on the banks of the river. He 
 fished daily, and had done so for many years ; Sundays excepted, 
 I presume. He never changed his attire. To me he appeared 
 sane enough : in his day he had been a naval surgeon, a class of 
 men very much to be pitied. If not insane, he must have been 
 of the stoic class of philosophers who hold themselves entitled to 
 terminate existence so soon as it becomes insupportable to them ; 
 for he committed the rash act a few years afterwards, as I was 
 told. Alas for man ! Why did he live a recluse ? And if so, 
 had he nothing to go back upon ? No resources within his own 
 mind ? Or was it the east winds, that for eight months of the 
 year creep up the lone valley of the Lyne and embitter human 
 life ? I have heard the nine of diamonds called the Curse of 
 Scotland ; but I rather think it must be the east wind. You 
 may include the east wind of merry England. 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 THE TWEED EEOM PEEBLES TO INVEBLEITHEIS^ AND THENCE 
 TO GALASHIELS. 
 
 I HATE never fished the Tweed from Peebles to Inverleithen ; 
 nevertheless the angler may find excellent sport here. Trout 
 take fast when the waters are dark and thick, or red and muddy. 
 On such occasions, the preserved salmon-roe is a telling bait for 
 all sorts of trout. Tweed trout, it is true, are but sorry fare, but 
 
. rN^VEELEITHEN — JAMES HOGG. 103 
 
 the angler does not heed this. At Inverleithen is the small 
 stream of the Leithen, almost dried up when I saw it. Yet in 
 winter, I have been told, large bull trout and sea trout ascend 
 the river to spawn. They are slaughtered, of course, hy the 
 country people. 
 
 At Inverleithen, Hogg, the so-called Ettrick Shepherd, passed 
 much of his time. Not that he lived there ; his house and farm 
 were on Yarrow's braes ; but Inverleithen was his favourite 
 haunt, his chief delight being to carouse and indulge in deep 
 potations with strangers and friends. I well remember an esteemed 
 friend who boasted that, with the aid of another, a drunken Edin- 
 burgh writer, he had settled the Ettrick Shepherd, who drank so 
 much and so long at one carousing bout, that he was never more 
 seen to raise his head ! Hogg was a poet of no mean order ; ima- 
 ginative and gifted by nature. He lived by Yarrow ; Yarrow, 
 called classic before his time. I remember inviting him to sup- 
 per with half a dozen others of the " Homer Craft." As the 
 champagne flew to their heads, they seemed to become almost 
 deranged. They are now eithet dead or mad in reality. This 
 was not long before his death. A vile crew of scribblers and 
 assassins of character were in the habit of using poor Hogg's 
 name to give a sort of respectability or zest to their malicious 
 monthly filth. They proved his ruin. 
 
 Hogg experimented on the parr and wrote about sheep, for he 
 was a sheep farmer, and might have done well under a most in- 
 dulgent landlord (Buccleugh) ; but, like others of his craft, he 
 was scarcely ever at home. Here is a picture of the crew by one 
 of themselves ; let it be remembered, also, that he lived in a 
 country where whisky is, or was, the universal drink, and of 
 which the immortal bard sa3^s : — 
 
 *' Thou art the life of public haunts ; 
 But* thee, what were our fairs and rants ? 
 E'en godly meetings of the saints, 
 
 By thee inspired, 
 AVhen gaping they besiege the tents. 
 
 Are doubly fired." 
 
 The rhyming crew have been painted by one of themselves, hj 
 one who knew the human heart. 
 
 Without. 
 
104i FISH AFD FISniXG IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 "0 mandate glorious and divine. 
 The ragged followers of the nine. 
 Poor thoughtless devils." 
 
 At Inverleitlien the angler, who is fond of bold and mountain 
 seener}^, may cross the wild and desolate Minch Moor to 
 Selkirk, and from thence fish the lower waters of the Yarrow 
 andEttrick; or, keeping to the right and southerly, find his way 
 to the Gordon Arms, and from thence fish Yarrow, the Loch of 
 the Lows, St. Mary's Loch, Loch Skene, or wandering by 
 Tweedside make for Clovenford. He will here find in the 
 Tweed some excellent salmon streams, and large trout are to be 
 caught with minnow ; but the river is broad and the salmon 
 rod must be used. A deadly bait for the kelts or foul fish 
 running for the sea in May is a lob worm, threaded on the hook 
 and line, so far as merely to leave the point of the hook free ; 
 to this attach, by the middle, one or two small worms, and with 
 a rather heavy lead, sink the bait to the bottom of the stream. 
 
 From Clovenford to Galashiels is a considerable distance ; the 
 banks of the Tweed are tame ; Abbotsford, it is true, lies on the 
 opposite bank, and this merits a passing look. It will some day 
 be called "Scott's folly;" it ruined poor Sir Walter. But of 
 this more anon. 
 
 Opposite to Inverleithen is Traquair and " the Bush aboon 
 Traquair." As I looked for " the Bush," I saw a strange look- 
 ing figure ploughing in the fields, he wore a queue, with powdered 
 hair, and sky-blue swallow-tailed coat, &o. I said to my com- 
 panion, that man is a Frenchman and a Celt, and wears the 
 costume of Louis Quatorze ; he is a Celt, he never alters essen- 
 tially, and hating labour he never dresses like a labouring man. 
 But still the problem to be solved was, how he came here ? So 
 I got off" the road, and asked a cottager to whom the grounds 
 belonged; to Lord Traquair, replied the honest Scotchwoman. 
 That is enough, I knew all the rest. So musing on the history 
 of the races of men, I prepared to climb Minch Moor. 
 
 And so I did four times ; but I must reserve the history of 
 this for another chapter; and so descending the Tweed by 
 Abbotsford, I shall next conduct the angler to the Gala. 
 
 At one time the waters about Inverleithen were infested by a 
 few furious drunken cat-o'-mountain ro^^sterers, of whom old 
 
GALA WATEE. 105 
 
 Rantipole was the star. The real angler naturally avoids such 
 persons and their haunts. There is surely a medium between 
 such and the mawkish claret-sipping author of the "Salmonia," 
 who never said a clever thing in his life. He was a man of 
 genius, notwithstanding all that has been said against him by 
 the London Doctor who " attempted his life." 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 GALA WATER. 
 
 ''There's braw bt-aw lads on Yarrow braes. 
 That wander through the blooming heather ; 
 But YaiTow braes, nor Ettrick snaws, 
 Can match the lads of Gala Water." 
 
 BUENS. 
 
 A MOiJNTAii^'ous country, wild, desolate, barren, extending 
 from St. App's Head on the east to the Western Ocean, with 
 little or no interruption, separate the valleys of the Forth and 
 Clyde from those in which run the Tweed, Annan, and Nith. It 
 is in this range of hilly country that we find the sources of 
 most of the trouting rivers of south Scotland, including the 
 streams of the Gala I am now to describe ; but on niy first 
 visit to the Grala, I reached it from the south. Since then I 
 have fished it at most points. It is a classic river ; Burns has 
 made its name immortal. Deeply engraven on memory's tablet 
 is my first visit to Gala, and my last. It was autumn ; the 
 autumnal floods had set in. As we crossed Minch Moor from 
 Peebles, intending to sleep at Selkirk, the rain fell in torrents. 
 On the summit of that terrible moor we were enveloped in a 
 thunder cloud. At three of the day it was as dark as midnight ; 
 yet we journeyed on by Yarrow, swollen into a fierce discoloured 
 torrent, until Selkirk rose to view. Here we rested ; but next 
 morning it brightened up ; I almost think it was Sunday morn- 
 ing. Wandering on by Tweedside, we crossed the silvery stream 
 by the bridge, which the traveller will still find a mile or two 
 below the junction of the Gala and Tweed. Thence retracing 
 
106 riSH ATs^D FISHIIfG Ilf SCOTLAND. 
 
 oui" steps, we reached the village or hamlet of Galashiels. That 
 we were on foot I need scarcely say. Your anglers who mount 
 on horses and lide to the Grala in post-chaises or by rail are 
 artificial things, called citizens — inhabitants of cities. They are 
 usually bad anglers in the direct ratio of the value of their angling 
 gear. I have tested it over and over again. Some one told me 
 they once met Charles Bell-^Sir Charles as he was afterwards 
 nicknamed — ^fishing in this very water, the Gala. He had come 
 in a post-chaise to Noble House, and when seen by my friend, 
 resembled nothing on earth beneath, nor in heaven above. He 
 was clothed in waterproof, from the crown of his head to the 
 sole of his foot. Had he been made of sugar, which no one ever 
 thought him to be, he could not more have dreaded the touch of 
 water. Poor Sir Charles ! he was no angler, but, by the lone 
 river side and on the heaths of his native land, he hoped to 
 escape, if only for a day, the beaten path, the common high road, 
 moral and physical, to shake off for an hour the harness of social 
 life. 
 
 The village of Galashiels, when I first saw it, consisted of a 
 church and manse, a sort of inn, or rather public-house, and of 
 some half-a-dozen thatched houses or huts. 'No one was moving 
 about ; it seemed deserted and crumbling into ruins. A coarsely 
 made salmon fishing-rod or two placed over the doorway of one 
 of these low, thatched cottages, told us that there lived a brother 
 angler. We were right. Our fishing-rods and basket bespoke 
 our purpose, and told the simple, honest-hearted inmate who we 
 were. I could not well make out what business he exercised ; 
 but of this I am sure, he was a noble angler — angler of a higher 
 order, for he chiefly aimed at the salmon. We were at home at 
 once. I distinctly recollect that he was a bachelor ; but, be this 
 as it may, it was resolved that, for eight days at least, we should 
 fish the Gala. Tweed also was at hand, and a short walk enabled 
 us to reach its banks at that part and near that house which 
 another of Scotland's great minds has immortalized. But at the 
 time I now speak of Sir Walter Scott had not written "Waverley," 
 nor the " Monastery," nor even the " Lady of the Lake" (would 
 that he had never written it !) and the town of Galashiels 
 was a hamlet such as I have described. 
 
BE PEEPAEED EOE SALMON. 107 
 
 The lower waters of the Gala, above and below the busy manu- 
 facturing town of Galashiels, cannot now afford, I should think, 
 any sport for the angler. It was different then ; large trout 
 and whitling were caught just below the village. Still, silvery 
 Tweed is not far off, and trout and salmon are no doubt to 
 be taken with the rod. Miles of the Tweed are still free 
 to the angler. Be cautious of its treacherous pools and 
 streams, clear but deep. That fish you see so distinctly, 
 and which you fancy you might almost touch, lies " fathoms 
 deep." Still to be successful you must wade. Fish with a 
 small sahnon rod, with flies of various sizes ; a large trout or 
 grilze fly will tempt a salmon. If the line and rod be not in 
 good order, you may lose the fish, Hne, and top. It happened 
 that, fishing a little below Clovenford for trout, a seven pound 
 salmon took the grilze fly with which I had hoped merely to 
 entrap a sea trout. He ran the line out instantly ; the point of 
 the rod lay in the water for five minutes at a time. I merely 
 held on, and would gladly have been quit for the loss of the line ; 
 as it was, I landed him safely at last. But I shall speak of the 
 Tweed hereafter, and so return to the Gala. 
 
 "No angler need now, I presume, fish the lower waters of the 
 Gala; but he may successfully still cross the highlands by 
 Blackshiels, and crossing from the north, strike the Gala near 
 its source. Here, should the weather be soft and warm, summer 
 dropping clouds appearmg ever and anon, a western breeze, and 
 an evening's heavy rain preceding, the angler m.ay still, at any 
 point from near the sources to Torsonee, meet with all success. 
 But to do this he must be first in the field, fish with a short 
 rod, fine line, and red hackle, keep well off the bank, and lose no 
 time. The sun never shone on the Gala while I fished it, for clouds 
 obscure the valleys of the Lammermuir when the Low Countries 
 bask in glorious sunshine. I speak not of Noble House, a favourite 
 resort of anglers in former times. All is altered now, in so far at 
 least as man can alter nature. In the Gala, in my early days, 
 there were salmon and sea trout, parr and parr trout ; these still 
 abound. The Gala was famous for the abundance of parr. But 
 the red-spotted, common river trout also abound, furnishing good 
 sport to the angler, though despised by the gourmand. Like 
 
108 risn and FisniifG it?" Scotland. 
 
 the small rivers which descend from mountains, the upper waters 
 are the best for the angler, the size of the stream and of the fish 
 beings often in an inverse ratio. But, whether you fish a large 
 or small stream, see that the tackle be in good order, the reel 
 acting, and the line clear, the footing secure, with space to move 
 a step or two, before 3^ou spread your flies, or touch with the 
 minnow (the choicest of all bait) the whirling eddies of the tur- 
 bulent stream rolling rapidly into the linn, dark, smooth, and 
 deep. 
 
 But the art of trolling with minnows for trout I shall reserve 
 for those streams and rivers in, which I have angled with min- 
 nows. I wish to speak of nothing in which I have not been 
 engaged. I never fished the Gala with minnow. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE LEADEE. 
 
 To the eastward of theG-ala, arising on the southern slopes of the 
 great mountain chain whence the Grala springs : from the summits 
 of the Soutra and Lammar Law, and draining the valleys which 
 stretch from the ridge of this great watershed, southward towards 
 the vale of Berwick, run the Leader and the Whitadder; to 
 these I may add the Blackwater, the lonely Die, and the wild 
 and desolate Fastna. Of these I shall speak in succession, and 
 first of the Leader. The northern slope of these mountains, in 
 its eastern part, supplies the feeders of the Tyne, a stream^ I 
 have already described. The trout differ. In the Tyne, as we 
 have alread}^ seen (Part I., Chap. II.), they are, in many parts, 
 pink-coloured, and excellent to eat ; but in the southern waters, of 
 which I now write, they are, with some exceptions, white, soft, 
 and useless as food. Salmon and sea trout frequent both sets of 
 streams, and parr are found wherever salmon are. The contrary 
 of this has been asserted ;* but I feel certain of the fact that 
 
 * By my esteemed friend, Mr. Young, of Invershin. 
 
TUE WHITADDEE, OE, WniTEWATEE. 109 
 
 parr are found only in salmon rivers. Is the converse true ? I 
 believe it is not. In certain districts of the North Eiding of 
 Yorkshire there are streams that are frequented by salmoa trout 
 at least, in which no parr have ever been found. 
 
 But I retui-n to the Leader. Of this river I know but little ; 
 I believe it to be a fair angling water, but not like those of 
 which I shall speak presently. Make for Leader Foot, if you can, 
 from the south : if from the north, march on Soutra, as I did. 
 Let the weather be close and warm, rain abundant, a light 
 breeze to ruffle the surface, and you are sure of some success, at 
 least. Ti-out take fast during heavy rains, yet on a clear autumnal 
 evening, with the wind at east, I have caught as many trout as 
 I liked in the Boat Pool at Shanna Bank, on the Whitadder. 
 Others, no doubt, have experienced the same caprices in the tastes 
 of trout. But I shall not dwell on the Leader, knowing so little 
 of it. Leader Foot is romantic and most beautiful ; the river 
 here joins the Tweed. Beyond, the eye wanders over Roxburgh- 
 shire, and the noble Cheviots shut in the scene, but they are 
 indistinct. Drybm'gh Abbey is near : it belongs to Tweedside. 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 THE WHITADDEE : THE EASTNA. 
 
 Akglees should have nothing to do with gigs and horses, 
 coaches, rails. I do not even like to mention them. The fishing- 
 ground must be reached, no doubt ; this I admit. But if you 
 be a true angler, you will turn your back as soon as you can on 
 road and rail, making your way to the sweet valley, the lovely 
 glen, and the hill side. 
 
 The streams that feed the Whitadder may be reached at two 
 points. Leave your horse, or horse and gig, should you be un- 
 fortunate enough to have one, at Gifibrd or Danskine, and at 
 once face the Eed Brae road of Lammermuir. The misery is 
 that before you return jour horse will be starved, and may be 
 
no 
 
 TISH Al^D FISHING ll!( SCOTLAND. 
 
 injured for life. Better leave no cares behind you, but march at 
 once from Tranent, or Haddington, or Danskine, and rest there 
 for the evening. You pass the ancient town of Grifford, and the 
 sources of the Tyne : Saltoun, also, with its shady woods and 
 rich fields. You are here on historical ground : but go on and 
 
 /fj.S. 
 
 Figs. 1, 2— Salmon OTa, or eggs, removed from the gravel of the artificial spaAvning beda 
 on the Tay. They were sent to the author in the phial. Fig. 2, by his friend, K. Bdist, Esq., 
 Perth. 
 
 rest at Darskine; and when you leave this at early dawn, 
 be sure to take with you refreshments for the day, for you cannot 
 say when or where you may sup. 
 
 Journeying onwards from the top of the Red Brae hill, a dark 
 and desolate mountain tract lies before ^^ou : no signs of the 
 presence of man to be seen for miles and miles. The lonely 
 innocent sheep bleat and leave you the path to yourself. At last 
 
 fiy.f. 
 
 Figs. 3, 4 — Specimens of salmon fry, from the same artificial ponds on the Tay. They 
 are about four weeks old, and were removed alive from the boxes on the 6th May, 1854. 
 
 you come to a spot where the road divides. The one to the left, 
 sharp, difficult to find in thick weather, dangerous to take in 
 snow, is the one that leads to the valley of the Whitadder, to 
 Spartleton, and to Millknow, to Cransthaws, and Elmford ; it is 
 the one which the angler ought to take. From the point where 
 he leaves the main road, until he reaches Millknow and the base 
 
MTLLKNOW. Ill 
 
 of Spartleton, it is all down hill. He passes Mayshiel, gets a 
 sight of the stream that I have always looked on as the main 
 source of the Whitadder, passes the gipsy's grave, the ruined 
 keep, the junction of the source from the Whitewell of the 
 Whitadder and the Mayshiel stream ; and here, a little above the 
 Mill, with beauteous Priestlaw directly opposite, he sits down to 
 rest, and to prepare for the coming sport. 
 
 His further proceedings will be regulated by the aspect of the 
 waters. He had better view the stream a little, and look at the 
 Fastna, which joins the Whitadder a little higher up, consti- 
 tuting the third source of this fine stream — unquestionably the 
 best angling stream in Scotland. Should the Fastna be full, 
 running dark and rapidly, swollen by rains which have fallen 
 extensively on its sources, leaving the others untouched — an 
 occurrence I have witnessed more than once — then make at once 
 for the stream, or for any branch that has been flooded. Trout 
 run up such streams in hundreds and thousands, leaving for a 
 time the other unflooded ones, and seemingly the main stream 
 itself 
 
 One lovely autumn day, an hour or so before noon, I chanced 
 to be at Millknow with two other anglers. We agreed to fish 
 different streams : they selected the Fastna. As I had never fished 
 the source arising in the Whitewell, nor angled in the Bothwell 
 — another great source of the Whitadder which joins the stream 
 below St. Agnes — I determined on this course, namely, to ascend 
 the stream of the Whitewell, until I could cross the north- 
 eastern shoulder of Spartleton, and strike the Bothwell, fishing 
 this latter until it joined the Whitadder. Both streams were 
 very low and clear. I saw few trout, and those were large, but 
 out of condition. The walk was too much, for the Bothwell ran 
 winding through lonely glens, making me sad and melancholy, 
 reminding me of some of the streams of Kaffraria — " Het 
 land de Caifren." I do not think I saw a human being through- 
 out a day's ramble of more than twenty miles. My friends who 
 repaired to the Fastna caught six dozen large trout in no time ; 
 they were poor anglers, but Fastna, being flooded, the trout ran 
 like mad things up that stream from the Whitadder, leaping at 
 anything and everything. 
 
112 
 
 riSlI AND riSHING IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 The glen of the Fastna, looking from Fastna Bridge, is the 
 wildest and most desolate scene, saving one, I have ever beheld. 
 Woe to the traveller caught here amongst the snows of winter. 
 To sleep amidst the snow is the sleep of death : he awakens no 
 
 Fi^.s. 
 
 Fig. 5 — The smolt, drawn on a tliminislied scale. Compared vrith Figs. 3 and 4, it will 
 readily be seen how the forms of the young fish haA-e already changed. The fins have 
 greatly altered in character. Notwithstanding, it has still many metamorphoses to 
 undergo before it assumes its true specific character. 
 
 more. Yet the shepherds face those storms, and at night, in 
 search of their scattered flocks. They take nothing with them 
 hut a little bread ; to taste of ardent spirits is death. The faithful 
 dogs accompany them, and should they lose themselves, they 
 
 Fig. 11— Dentition of the palate of the smolt or young salmon. At this stage it resem- 
 bles, not only in its dentition, but in all its other external characters, the yoimg of aU 
 the species of trout, sea trout, and salmon. 
 
 Fig. 12 — Dentition of the young salmon, about 2^ or 3 lbs. weight. At this stage, the 
 true salmon has the dentition of the salmon trout. 
 
 Fig. 13 — Dentition of the full-grown salmon. The middle vomerine teeth are reduced to 
 one or two. These are merely outline sketches, the first somewhat enlarged. 
 
 N.B. — a a a mark the vomerine teeth, the characteristic teeth of the salmonidie ; bbb, the 
 teeth called palatine ; ccc, the teeth caUed upper maxillary ; ddd, the teeth called 
 intermaxillary. All these teeth have reference only to the upper jaw. 
 
 endeavour to regain the banks of one of the streams, which 
 serves them as the thread to guide them through the terrible 
 labyrinth of snow. 
 
 As you ascend the Fastna, you will find a bank or scarbrae on 
 
SIE JAMES HALL. Il3 
 
 the right : it is the identical spot where Sir James Hall first 
 caught the idea that the sandstone strata of the globe are merely 
 sand consolidated under a pressure of ten or twelve atmospheres. 
 In experimenting afterwards on this geological question of great 
 interest, he added a flux of salt to his boiling mixture, and 
 succeeded in obtaining a something like the sandstone elaborated 
 in the chemical laboratory of the earth. He was an ardent fol- 
 lower of Hutton, who discovered the true theory of the earth, 
 the source and origin of all modern discoveries in geology, viewed 
 simply and unconnected with Paleontolog}^, that wonderful instru- 
 ment of research invented by an anatomist — " Grand Cuvier," 
 as Byron called him. But Cuvier was greater than even the poet 
 imagined him to be. 
 
 The angler may still find the shepherd who conducted my 
 esteemed friends, Messrs. Witham and Allan, and self to the spot ; 
 he had also been Sir James Hall's guide through the wilds of 
 Fastna. The geology of the district has its interest, for Mill 
 Know farm-house is built on a kind of granite, which here comes 
 to the surface. The great mass of the Lammermuir is not 
 however composed of green stone or basalt, but of an older 
 rock, what the Germans call grauwacke, and the shepherds, 
 whinstone. 
 
 I must return to trout and angling. The Fastna trout is 
 darker than the Whitadder trout, a circumstance ascribed to the 
 mossy character of its stream ; I doubt all this, or if it be so, 
 it is trivial and unimportant. 
 
 Mill Know may be reached by other roads than the one I have 
 described. The angler may start from Haddington, and com- 
 mence his ascent of the Lammermuir at Garvald Church on an 
 autumn day ; ride slowly or walk gently. As you begin to climb 
 the hill, an ancient castle, Munraw, I think, is on your left em- 
 bosomed in woods ; passing onwards, the trees become less and less, 
 fewer and fewer, until they degenerate into mere bushes ; the 
 hedgerows dwindle away into scattered patches widely spread, 
 furnishing no fence against sheep or horse; still ascending, the 
 grass becomes shorter and shorter, coarser and coarser, more 
 and more wiry ; heath appears close to the road- side, and you 
 tread a soil through which the plough was never driven. Look 
 
 I 
 
114 FISH AND riSHIKa IN SCOTLAND, 
 
 at the vast mountain range before yon : it is purple. Soft west 
 winds, as they sweep gently over this field of purple heather, 
 bring with them mellifluous odours surpassing far the new mown 
 hay. The hour is worth an age of common existence. On the 
 slope of the hill, or rather mountain, which closes in the scene 
 on the left, and just as I was about to cross the neck or gorge in 
 which the road lay, a flock of sheep which had crossed the pool 
 beneath were chmbing by their narrow walk the mountain side. 
 Some ten or twelve stood still in a row and looked at me. At 
 once rushed upon my mind the passage in the Hebrew record, 
 which I had read when young, but understood not ; or possibly 
 imagined to be an Eastern hyperbole ; beyond nature, extrava- 
 gant. But the proof that it was not so was now before me. 
 There they stood in Indian file, as the Hebrew poet described 
 them, comparing them to the teeth of his beloved. " Her teeth 
 were as a flock of sheep newly come from the w^ashing pool." 
 They stood in a line upon their narrow path, level, equi-distant, 
 all alike ; white, square, like the most beautiful human teeth.* 
 
 Descend we now the Whitadder, on a warm summer or 
 autumnal day, after floods, a fleecy sky, south-west winds gently 
 blowing, and between Fastna Foot and Cranshaws you may fill 
 many baskets. But you cannot rest here, for there is no place 
 for you to refresh, and your road must be onwards. Descending 
 the river as far as Elmsford, you boldly cross the stream and 
 reach the Cottage, the first of all angling stations in Scotland. 
 At this point you are six miles from Dunse. 
 
 THE LONE TBOUT, THE SOLE TENANT OF THE POOL— 
 AN EPISODE. 
 
 We sometimes hear of the lone star of the east or west, I 
 know not which, at v/hose dread name tyrants blanch and grind 
 their teeth with rage — monarchs tremble, and courtiers grow 
 sick with apprehension — but of this I speak not. Members of 
 " the order" fish in troubled waters. Whatever is lonely or alone 
 
 ' Her teeth were like a flock of sheep. 
 
 With fleeces newly washen clean^ 
 That slowly mount the rising steep. " 
 
 Burns. 
 
THE LONE TKOUT. H5 
 
 affects US more or less ; whether it be a woman or a trout, it 
 commands our sympathies, as the following little storj Avill 
 explain. 
 
 It was the end of April, or the very commencement of May, and 
 summer had set in with its usual severity in Scotland, when, 
 mounting my good grey mare, Bess, I at once crossed the Lam- 
 mermuir in search of quiet, rest, solitude, and health. These I 
 was sure to find on the banks of your crystal streams, gently 
 flowing Whitadder ! 
 
 The sun appeared for a short time as I made for the stream, 
 for the trout were busy feeding on the early flies, and I soon 
 caught a dish or basket full, but none of any size. But as the 
 day advanced, heavy cold clouds obscured the heavens, the tem- 
 perature fell, and I resolved to quit the stream which I have 
 never seen since. 
 
 About a mile and a half, or it may be two miles, below Mill 
 Kiow, travelling by the banks of the river, the stream forms a 
 line or pool at the base of a scarbrae. As I approached this, 
 the last time I ever flshed the Whitadder, it seemed alive with 
 large trout. They rose at flies almost every instant. At the 
 first cast of the line, 1 hooked a good-sized trout, and placing it 
 in my basket, threw again. Nothing rose : I stood amazed ; for 
 that pool, which an instant before was so full of life and of the 
 finny brood, was now still as death. I mused and pondered. At 
 once it flashed across my mind that I had caught the sole tenant 
 of the pool and stream. To remove it carefully from the basket, 
 to place it gently by the margin of the stream and in water suf- 
 ficiently deep to cover it, was the work of an instant. At first it 
 lay motionless, and turned upwards. I thought it dead. But 
 presently I could perceive signs of retui'ning life. It made a con- 
 vulsive gasp or two, and springing above the waters, next diving 
 into the pool, it disappeared. 
 
 Seated by the banks, I watched for some time to see if it 
 should again appear ; it did so, in chase of flies. I felt relieved 
 and rejoiced, as I journeyed homeward, that I had not caught and 
 destroyed the sole tenant of the pool. 
 
 Men at a certain period of life lose their taste for angling ; 
 but they recover it again. I have pa;5sed the period, but be 
 
 i2 
 
116 TISH AXD FISHING ITT SCOTLAND. 
 
 that as it may, at no time of my life would I knowingly have 
 taken from the pool its sole live tenant. 
 
 ELMSFORD: THE COTTAGE. — THE MIDDLE WATEES OF THE 
 WHITADDEE. 
 
 Of all angling stations in Scotland this is the first, the hest. 
 See that your tackle be in good order, especially in autumn, 
 when sea trout and whitlings may be looked for in every deep 
 running stream, or pool, or linn. Approach the river-side cau- 
 tiously, and rather early than late. Do not be much after ten 
 in the morning. At the Cottage, six miles from Dunse, and 
 at Longformaeus you command the Whitadder and the Die. 
 Lower down are some good streams when flooded. 
 
 •The hills which border the valley, in which the Whitadder 
 runs from Priestlaw, now begin to close in so as to narrow the 
 valley almost to the bed of the river. As if in mockery, one of 
 these mountains has been called Mountjoy; but they are not 
 precipitous nor troublesome to the angler. They are naked, 
 barren, stony, heathery hills, desolate and dreary, but pleasant in 
 summer. The first noble stream you meet below the Cottage is 
 the Greenup, at the first bend the river makes in its course east- 
 ward and southward and towards Tweed. If the waters are heavy, 
 and you have reason to think that sea trout and grilse have run 
 up the streams, fish the Greenup with a pair of grilse flies, and a 
 good trout fly above these. Fish it carefully, and failing this, 
 troll the stream with minnow for large trout. Having done 
 your best, put oh three good trout flies, and fish the river at once 
 as far as the Blackwiel. 
 
 To fish this splendid stream and pool, out of which you may 
 take a basketfull of large trout and salmon, and sea trout, as 
 the case may be, cross the river above or below the deep pool at 
 the ford. You may find the pool, or drift as we called them in 
 Caffraria, rather deep, so be cautious; I have been obhged 
 sometimes to forego the fishing of the Blackw^eil on this account, 
 that is, the river was not fordable ; but I recommend you to fish 
 it if possible, and this can only be done from the northern and 
 eastern bank. 
 
 Of the excellence of this stream I need say nothing, it will 
 
THE BLACKWEIL. 117 
 
 never disappoint you. Fish it as you did the Grreenup, that is, 
 first very cautiously, with grilze and sea trout flies, next with 
 minnow. If the waters be in good order go on with the min- 
 now. Noble streams and pools await you ; the rough water all 
 the way down to Shanna Bank and Abbey St. Bathan's, furnish 
 the finest angling ground in Britain. In the boat hole alone, as 
 it is called, with the water clear, and a strong easterly wind 
 blowing, I have taken, with a pair of flies, six dozen trout. This 
 pool is near Shanna Bank. 
 
 Now come the streams and stepping-stones across from the 
 village to the hill-side, and lastly, that terminating in the Mill- 
 dam. In these streams you may take as many trout as you 
 like. They do not fear the people crossing the stepping-stones. 
 
 But should you have time, pass the Mill-dam, and try the 
 stream below at the Wherebm'n mouth. You may take a two 
 or three pound trout in this stream should the water be in good 
 order. They take fly readily, but minnow is the bait here, and 
 in the next stream below, at the turn where the river is about 
 to enter the woods of the Eetreat. 
 
 Take care how you attempt to reach Cockburn's Path from 
 St. Agnes, or from the Cottage ; dangerous and terrible clefts in 
 the elevated and hilly land intersect your road, in which run 
 the streams that join the ocean near Dunglass. An unhappy man, 
 in the prime of life, returning to the sea-side late in the evening, 
 missed his way, and fell into one of these deep clefts. Happy 
 Avould it havQ been for him had he been killed by the fall, for it 
 appeared that, merely breaking the thigh bone, he had crawled 
 down the rocky bed of the stream for many hours, perhaps 
 even days. Rendered furious with hunger, he had, before 
 death, gnawed the flesh off his own shoulder. When suffering* 
 from hunger, a sort of insanity seizes some persons. Thirty- 
 eight hours without food of any kind, and in active exercise 
 during a part of the time, is as much as most men can sustain. 
 
 If the angler can find a resting-place at St. Bathan's, which I 
 doubt, he ought to remain here ; if not, he must either return 
 to the Cottage or push on for Dunse. It is a wild country, 
 without inns or hotels, cabarets, or places of refreshment of any 
 kind. The angler must look to his own resources. He cannot 
 
118 FISH AKD FISHIKG IK SCOTLAIs'D. 
 
 well attempt, when the day is di-awing to a close, the road over 
 Cockburnlaw ; he must not, in fact, having regard to his per- 
 sonal safety. Eeturn, therefore, to the Cottage, and if the angler 
 be inclined next day to fish the waters from the angle below the 
 mill of St. Bathan's, let him return to this point early next 
 morning, and be prepared for the roughest day's sport he ever 
 saw. 
 
 Let your rod be a short salmon rod ; your tackle fine but 
 excellent ; your bait minnow ; and commence at the bend below 
 the mill of St. Bathan's. Heavy streams follow ; there is 
 scarcely standing room to fish the stream and pool ; the trout 
 are large and active, and it is difficult to land them. As jovl 
 descend the gorge, into which the river now plunges, the stream 
 becomes more and more tumultuous, the ground steep, dan- 
 gerous, and rocky. By climbing the hill, which here rises sharp 
 from the river edge, you lose some streams, but you cannot other- 
 wise descend the river course. I have been assured, that although, 
 in floods it is needless to attempt fishing these streams, yet, after 
 long continued droughts, they abound with large trout, which 
 falling down from the Die and the upper waters of the Whit- 
 adder, congregate in those deep and dangerous linns. You come 
 at last to the Copper Mine and Hell's Cauldi*on or Hole, in which 
 they say salmon are to be found at most times of the year ; but 
 there is no approaching it with rod or angle. 
 
 I had partly fished these wild streams one autumn day, passing 
 many, my object being merely to explore the river banks. At 
 Hell's Cauldron, the river makes a bend or angle to skirt the 
 northern side of lofty Cockburn. I would willingly have ex- 
 plored this, to me unknown portion of the river, from the 
 Cauldron to Preston Mill, where the river, escaping from the 
 mountain gorge, passes into the beautiful vale of Berwickshire, 
 to meander with crystal placid waters by wooded Edrom, Broom- 
 house, and Allan Bank ; but the sun was declining, and there 
 remained but about an hour to reach our auberge, wherever that 
 might be. Climbing the high ground to the left, we gained a. 
 lonely neck or mountain pass, overlooking the vale of the Whit- 
 adder and Tweed ; eastward is Blinkbonny, a farm so named, — 
 on which the setting sun fell sweetly, — which I had once some 
 
THE DIE. 119 
 
 thoughts of making my own, but fate ordered it otherwise. 
 The sun set on its low white wall and thatched roof. Night, 
 with her sombre mantle, began to obscure all things ; the 
 labourers had left the fields. Pensive and melancholy, meditating 
 on the past and guessing at the future, we found a resting-place 
 in Dunse. 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 THE DIE. 
 
 Whilst at the Cottage of Elmsford, the angler ought to fish 
 the Die. It abounds with large trout ; but its lower waters 
 are difficult to fish, the banks being shaded with lofty trees. In 
 a primitive village, called Longformacus, the angler may breakfast, 
 and even find a lodging, should he not be over particular. Start- 
 ing early from the village, and proceeding up the stream for 
 three or four miles, he will, provided he be diligent, secure an 
 excellent dish of trout before he returns to the Cottage. The 
 village stands in a wild, witch-looking country, dangerous to 
 travel unless by clear dayhght. A road, of the loneliest and 
 wildest, leads to Fastna Bridge, another from Longformacus to 
 Grreenlaw, by the base of the stormy Dirrington. A footpath 
 through the morass, difficult and dangerous to strangers, usually 
 selected by the natives, cuts off a portion of the main road. If 
 you attempt it, make for some sandy hills of no great elevation, 
 lying straight south, and midway between the road and the 
 mountain. It was at this spot that a villager, returning one 
 evening from Greenlaw, beheld the funeral procession of his 
 sister (who died a year before, and to whom on her death-bed he 
 had refused all means of support) wind along a narrow path, 
 coming, as it were, from Dirrington. He became frantic. As the 
 procession passed him — it was "the gloaming" — the phantoms 
 halted, looked, and shook their elfin locks at him. In terror he 
 fled no one knew where ; pursued by the fiends which an evil 
 
120 riSH AKD FTSHING IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 conscience had roused, he seemed to have crossed Dirrlngton, 
 and descended to the rocky banks of the Die, crossing and re- 
 crossing its rapid stream. Faint, wild, and overcome with 
 terror, he reached home early next morning, took to his bed, 
 foretold his approaching end, and calling his son to him, made 
 him solemnly promise that he would never travel by that road. 
 
 Years rolled on. The son, strong, muscular, and fearing 
 nothing, yet avoided the road after sundown. But fate 
 ordered that, leaving Greenlaw, and emboldened, no doubt, by 
 friendly greetings and potations deep, he neglected his father's 
 advice, and persisted. He had seen the phantom funeral, and 
 was next day found dead where the footpath is about to enter 
 on the morass on the slope of the sandy knolls, where his father 
 first encountered the spectre. 
 
 The seeing phantoms is peculiar to those susceptible of the 
 second sight ; but it may extend to millions where the delusion 
 is strong. The delusion of believing that which we see to be 
 always real, the "air-drawn dagger," the spectral funeral, all 
 belong to one class. I met a lady of rank in the Highlands, 
 a Celtic lady, who had twice seen a spectre : no one doubted her. 
 The lady to whom I allude had a brother in Paris, and she re- 
 sided at the time with, or was on a visit to, a married sister, in the 
 Highlands of Scotland. She belonged to a family of distinction 
 and fortune. Standing, on a Sunday evening, by the drawing- 
 room fire with her sister, awaiting the dinner bell, her brother, 
 who was at that moment in Paris, walked into the room, and 
 after gazing at her for a few seconds, returned as he came. She 
 called her sister's attention to the presence of their brother, but 
 she treated it as a vision, perceiving nothing herself. The 
 matter was talked over at dinner, and thought no more of; but 
 that day next week there came a letter from Paris, sealed with 
 black wax. It was from a friend, and ran thus : " My dear 
 sir, I regret to inform you that last Sunday, about six o'clock, I 
 accompanied your brother-in-law to the Bois de Boulogne on an 
 affair of honour, and I grieve to say your brother was shot dead 
 at the first fire." 
 
LOWER WATERS OF THE WHITADDER. 121 
 
 CHAPTER VIT. 
 
 THE LOWER WATERS OF THE WHITADDER. 
 
 At Preston Mill and Haugh the river escapes from the wild, 
 rocky, mountainous country, entering the beautiful valley in which 
 the Tweed runs. The richest fields succeed the barren waste ; 
 woodlands, orchards, and highly-cultivated grounds bespeak 
 wealth and comfort. The river itself partakes of the character 
 of the country, running in gentle streams over a pebbly bed, 
 alternating with long reaches of still water. The angler who 
 would fish these streams successfully should sleep at Dunse, and 
 starting early, in choice angling weather, make for the Whitadder. 
 Preston Mill is about three miles from Dunse, and he may com- 
 mence there should he think fit, but I have never fished the 
 river from Preston to Broomhouse Paper-mill ; from this to the 
 emhouchure of the river in Tweed it is otherwise : I know every 
 stream and pool — every rock and scarbrae. 
 
 ' ' Tlie evening's clear : 
 Tliick flies the skimming swallow ; , 
 
 The sky is blue, the fields in view, 
 
 All fading green and yellovi%" 
 
 Let us suppose that the angler has decided on commencing 
 below the Mill-dam, and fishing down the stream : that it is 
 August, or the beginning of September, warm, close, and sultry : 
 that heavy rains have swollen the river, making it dark, rapid, 
 and dangerous to cross. Approaching the stream cautiously, and 
 spinning a small minnow, or temptingthe finny brood with a couple 
 of large-sized hackle flies, he is likely to hook a large trout or sea 
 trout, or whitling at once. But even without this good luck at 
 starting, by careful fishing, he can scarcely fail to fill his basket 
 with large-sized trout by the time he reaches the bridge and road 
 leading to Chirnside. He will find Chirnside a pleasant resting- 
 place : the country between the village and the river is beautifully 
 wooded. 
 
 Returning next morning to the bridge just spoken of, the angler 
 enters on a remarkable portion of the river. Without a known 
 
122 FISH Ais-^D FisKi:s-G IN scotla:nd. 
 
 cause, excepting it be the rocky nature of the banks, few or no 
 trout are to be seen ; they cease as by a miracle near the first slaty 
 scarbrae, where, bending suddenly eastward, the river enters this 
 rocky slaty country ; and although it leaves it after a few miles, 
 a short way above AUantown, the river from this to its junc- 
 tion with Tweed has ceased to be that noble trouting-stream 
 which we have seen it is, from the Whitwell to Chirnside 
 Bridge. 
 
 Salmon and salmon-trout are occasionally taken in these deep 
 streams and pools of the slaty district, but I never caught any 
 trout there. The angler now reaches Allanton, a village situated 
 at the conflux of the Blackadder and Whitadder. He has his 
 choice of both : but the banks of the Blackadder are, for miles 
 upwards, deeply wooded, enclosed, and preserved, and there is no 
 angling without permission. Salmon never ascend the Black- 
 adder : the cause of this is quite unknown. It is with them, I 
 presume, as with other animals which frequent certain regions 
 in preference to others, guided by an instinct which never errs. 
 In this way Nature limits, no doubt, her extension of animals 
 indifferently. Thus I question if the salmon could by any means 
 be transplanted to the Blackadder, so as to breed there and 
 annually return. But it would be interesting to test this by 
 placing a few beds of fecundated roe in the streams of this river, 
 near its source ; then watching the progress of the fry down the 
 stream, on their way to the ocean. Should they return to their 
 native streams — the streams in which they first saw the light — 
 the Blackadder would then become a salmon river : but this I 
 doubt, for they would not return. 
 
 The angler will find in Allanton all he requires ; but it is 
 right to caution him, that from this to the mouth of the river 
 I have always found it to be very poor angling. Mills follow 
 mills, dam-heads dam-heads. The river, deeply sunk in its bed, 
 has thickly-wooded banks, that are very beautiful to look at, but 
 greatly eitibarrass the angler. "What the angler might do at par- 
 ticular seasons of the year in these streams, I am not prepared to 
 say. I fished it frequently, and twice at least in the company 
 of first-rate anglers, with fly and minnow, parr-tail and worm, 
 but we caught nothing, or next to nothing. Others may have 
 
HEMAEKABLE ILLrSION". 123 
 
 "been more successful ; at all events, it is wortli a trial. Beau- 
 tiful scenery will requite the labour of the walk, and by standing 
 opposite a deep scarbrae, where the sandstone strata have been 
 cut partly through by time and floods, I presume the angler may 
 observe a very singular phenomenon. The place I refer to may 
 be about three miles below Allanton, more or less ; but I have 
 often observed the phenomenon in other places. 
 
 I have said that my companion, on the last occasion I fished 
 these streams, was a most experienced and successful angler, 
 strong and bold in hand, clear-sighted beyond most men. Yet 
 his eyes misled him strangely whilst standing on the bank of 
 the river, and looking intently at the pool before him. In it he 
 saw, or fancied he saw, many salmon, sea trout, and grilses. 
 He threw his^ line. They moved and danced about, shifting 
 their ground in a manner so natural, as to deceive his most 
 experienced eye. But I had more experience in this case, for I 
 had seen them before, and knew them to be the reflected angles 
 and edges of the sandstone cliff's, which, rising high above the 
 waters, throw their shadows into the pool beneath. To observe 
 Nature, and to discover the absolute truth, requires, in many 
 cases, more than good eyes and a brain : it requires knowledge 
 or experience, previously-instructed sight, otherwise the object 
 may be before you, and yet remain wholly unseen or unperceived 
 by you, I remember being on a patrol in Caffraria, with a 
 
 party of fifteen men, commanded by Ensign C . We crossed 
 
 the great Yische Riviere at De Bruin's post, climbed the high 
 lands running parallel with that stream, and crossing the open 
 coimtry, reached the Koonap River about noon : here we rested. 
 My friend had never seen wild elephants, nor had any of the 
 party but myself. As we journeyed onwards, I promised him 
 that if his way lay towards the junction of the Koonap and Fish 
 Rivers, a spot I was anxious to see, it being at the time unknown 
 to Europeans, I doubted not our meeting plenty of elephants. 
 It was about three in the afternoon, and soon after crossing the 
 Koonap, we entered on a most beauteous undulating country, 
 with scenery altogether park-like, but superior to any park that 
 ever was modelled by human hands. At the distance of about a 
 mile to the right there ran a ridge of moderately-elevated hills, 
 
124i FISH A2fD FlSHINa IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 covered with the bush which clothes most of the hills and banks 
 of the rivers in Southern Africa : a bush terrible to behold — 
 dark, melancholy, and full of painful recollections. On the slopes 
 of these hills, I saw at once a troop of wild elephants of at least 
 a hundred, young and old, peacefully grazing as they travelled 
 along, probably towards the bush of the Great Fish Eiver. I 
 took infinite pains to point them out to my friend C , a quick- 
 sighted, dark-eyed Celt, and to the detachment he commanded, 
 but all in vain : they could not see one. 
 
 The detachment being on foot, with the exception of C 
 
 and myself, we left them where we halted, and rode gently 
 towards the elephants, and had come within half a mile, when 
 all at once he saw that what he had supposed to be the naked 
 red clay patches of the hill, intermingled with the bush, was a 
 vast troop of the greatest of all Nature's terrestrial quadrupeds. 
 
 Mentioning the circumstance many years afterwards to my 
 most esteemed friend. Dr. Brewster, he assured me that the same 
 thing had happened to himself. An object was placed under the 
 microscope by Sir J. Herschell, and although he did his best to 
 see it, he did not succeed, until Sir John showed him hotv to loolc 
 for it. 
 
 That incomparable wit, John Barclay, used to illustrate the dif- 
 ficulty of being unable to see what ought to be seen in a different 
 way. To one of his students, who could not see an object placed 
 before him, he remarked — " It is no fault of mine, for as I know 
 it to be there you ought to see it." 
 
 But if men are slow sometimes at seeing that which they 
 ought to see, they on other occasions are quick to discern that 
 which has no existence. They may move rapidly without con- 
 sciousness, believing all the while that they do not move at all ; 
 the consciousness of the action is overcome by a stronger con- 
 sciousness — a belief — strongest of all mental actions — a belief. 
 
 THE BLACKADDEE. 
 
 The angler may fish the sources of the Blackadder near Whit- 
 burn, or in the middle of its course from Greenlaw to Dunse ; 
 either of these stations will be found convenient enough — its 
 lower waters near Allanton, where it joins the Whitadder. 
 
THE BLACKADDEE. 125 
 
 But its waters are mostly protected, and the stream itself, 
 ■unless after heavy rains, insignificant. It contains no salmon, 
 nor sea trout, nor parr. Its trout are darker and finer, and rather 
 better eating than the Whitadder trout, which, after all, is not 
 saying much for them. They are chiefly the trout called parr- 
 trout, by which I mean common river trout, retaining to the 
 adult condition tolerably w^ell marked parr markings. 
 
 The Blackadder would be an excellent trouting stream were it 
 not for poachers, the most destructive of whom are, not the wild 
 daring fellows who break into grounds by day or night and make 
 a dash at what they can get, but the sly wily poacher, who enters 
 some park or grounds, walled and protected, by the side- 
 door leading to the home farm or gardener's house, on the 
 strength of a slight acquaintance with the farmer, or the niece, 
 or nephew; a neighbouring Dominie Sampson, for example, a parish 
 schoolmaster. Once within the grounds he knows where to find 
 a hand or pout net; through the estate runs a pretty deep 
 rivulet communicating with the Blackadder, into which, of 
 course, the largest trout make their way about the beginning of 
 autumn. The tine dish of trout thus caught are quietly sent to 
 the head inn of the neighbouring town. These are the poachers 
 who destroy the trouting streams of .Scotland. Not far from the 
 banks of the Blackadder there lived a few years ago a Dr. Horn- 
 book such as the Scottish bard has described ! He died a natural 
 death, a circumstance that surprised me. The tragedies that 
 happened in his hands must have been pretty numerous ; but he 
 went through them even with credit, and finally came to be 
 employed by the gentry themselves. The public, and especially 
 the wealthy and titled public, prefer, I think, self-taught doctors ; 
 the illiterate show a decided preference for the uneducated 
 preacher, and all are agreed that a profound lawyer makes a very 
 bad attorney. 
 
 Highly as I value natural gifts, I would still venture to sug- 
 gest that education ma}", notwithstanding, be of some small 
 benefit to mankind. Many clever men,* men high in office, are 
 of opinion that all beyond reading, writing, and casting up 
 
 * Lord EUenborough, late Governor- General of India. 
 
126 riSH A^D FISHING IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 accounts is not only useless, but calculated rather to unfit a man 
 for the exclusive affairs of " Indian" life at least; very likely; 
 Europeans do not go to India to study and observe. Knowledge 
 may be power, but there is a power above it, — money. What 
 says Horace ? — " Get money ; honestly if you can : but be sure to 
 get it." The only real power on the earth is the bayonet, which 
 is commanded only by money. The less that is said about 
 moral force the better; the joke is stale and thoroughly 
 exposed. 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 THE TWEED. THE TALLA. LOCH SKENE. 
 
 • 
 
 Some good angling streams join Tweed from the south ; the 
 Talla, for example, which indeed forms one of its sources ; the 
 Ettrick and Yarrow, the Tiviot, the Till. I shall speak of these 
 pretty nearly in the order I have emmierated. Loch Skene 
 belongs, to be sure, to the waters that join the Sol way, and may 
 be reached as well from Moffat on the Annan as from the 
 Gordon Arms on Yarrow. Nevertheless, I shall describe it as I 
 first saw it when, ascending to the sources of the Talla, we boldly 
 climbed the lofty mountain range, whence Tweed, and Clyde, 
 and Annan take their origin. 
 
 THE BIELD. 
 
 The angler will find the Bield or Crook good stations for sport. 
 The Tweed is here, upon which he can always fall back. He is 
 within a short distance of the Talla, and by starting early, he 
 may reach Loch Skene, returning the same evening to the Bield ; 
 but he must take refreshments with him, be regardless of fatigue, 
 sure-footed, and speedy of foot. His lungs must be untouched. 
 Linger not on the way. But before I lead the angler to Loch 
 Skene by this route, or any other, let me say a few words about 
 Tweed and Talla. 
 
LOCH SKENE. 127 
 
 These streams uniting near the bridge form, as it were, the 
 Tweed. At certain times of the year, and in certain conditions 
 of the river, there must be excellent fishing here. But I never 
 saw the Tweed in good order at Bield, and so had no success. 
 The common trout abounds, and parr are innumerable. They 
 may be taken with an artificial fly during every month of the 
 year. I had this done for me. At no time do they seem to 
 differ ; the roe in the female fish being always uniformly small, 
 minute ; the milt, on the contrary, in the male parr, being occa- 
 sionally very large, occasionally very small, but unconnected, as to 
 its growth, seemingly, with any particular season ; unlike, in this 
 respect, as in many others, all other fishes. 
 
 The Talla will furnish the angler with several days' good sport, 
 and, when swollen with rains, I should think it an excellent stream 
 for minnow-trolling. Large trout must ascend it at those times. 
 
 LOCH SKEJfE. 
 
 Prepared as I have described, ascend the lone valley of the 
 Talla, and climb the steep mountain which shuts it in at the top. 
 Here the road divides into two ; the left leads to Megget-land 
 and Yarrow, the right to the wild country lying between the 
 valley of the Talla and the Grainshope Loch. A footpath will 
 conduct you to the summit of a high neck of land connecting 
 Baven's Crag, at the foot of which is Loch Skene, with the 
 mountain chain which, bending westwards and to the south, 
 slopes to the banks of Annan and Evan Waters. 
 
 Keep the Eaven Crag on your left, and proceed at once for- 
 ward, and soon will Loch Skene unfold itself. Dark, dreary, deso- 
 late, and mournful is that deep pool of water. Black morasses, 
 precipitous and dangerous rocks, surround it on all sides. The 
 grassy slopes are pitfalls, and lead to the valley of death. It is 
 the wildest scene I ever beheld. 
 
 Descending to the Loch, we found in it two kinds or varieties 
 of trout, but none large — nor any parr. As the day rapidly de- 
 clined, we ascended in an hour or two the hill, by the same route, 
 and making rapidly for the valley of the Talla, reached the Bield 
 extremely fatigued. 
 
 Some years afterwards I visited Loch Skene by a different route. 
 
128 risn and tishiitg i-s Scotland. 
 
 On this occasion we travelled from Annandale, ascending the 
 stream which Loch Skene pours into the Annan. It meanders 
 for many miles through a very beautiful but narrow valley, en- 
 closed by lofty mountains. You reach at last a small inn, a kind 
 of auberge, on the highest point of the neck of land, forming the 
 water-shed between the sources of the Annan and that of Yarrow, 
 nesting here, we proceeded late in the afternoon of a gloomy day 
 to visit Loch Skene, at the distance of about three miles from the 
 tiny inn. The day became more and more obscured. After 
 fishing the lake, we were foolish enough to propose descending 
 in the course of the stream, which, after a short course, dashes 
 over a perpendicular and terrible precipice, forming the Grey 
 Mare's Tail — a fall of water of great height. To the brink 
 of this fearful bank we approached, on the left side of the stream, 
 descending until the roar of waters, as they boiled in the fearful 
 cauldron below, was but too audible. 
 
 To reascend was the difficulty, and even when sm^mounted, how 
 were we to proceed ? It was all but dark. Fortunatel}^, whilst 
 travelling up the vallej^ in the morning by the great road, I re- 
 marked that the slope next the gorge by which the stream escaped, 
 though very steep, was a continuous grassy slope, uninterrupted 
 by precipices, as all the others were. By this slope I determined 
 to descend. We escaped with life. Travellers and wanderers 
 have perished at this very spot, by falling into the dreadful 
 cauldron, from which it has been difficult to remove their help- 
 less remains. One such was swept around the cauldron for many 
 days. 
 
 Let the angler be cautious how he attempts descending the 
 slopes of these mountains. They are grassy for some hmidred 
 feet, when suddenly a precipitous wall of basaltic rock appears, 
 to descend which is impossible. Viewed from a distance, these 
 precipices seem trifling as to elevation or depth, but woe to the 
 traveller who should attempt descending them, or even approach 
 the brink. 
 
 We left the Birchin Knoll next morning, musing on the escape 
 of the previous day. Travelling onwards by an easy descent 
 towards the east, the source of the Yarrow accompanying us 
 along the wayside, in a few hom's we were fishing the Yarrow 
 at the Gordon Arms. 
 
TUE TAEllOW — THE ETTRICK. 129 
 
 Higli Tip the source of the Tweed and Annan there are 
 streams which, when flooded, find their way partly into Tweed 
 and Annan, and partly into Clyde. It is by these water- 
 courses, as has been supposed, that the smolts, which in some 
 rare instances have been found in the Clyde above the falls , 
 have reached the Clyde. I have no experience in the matter. All 
 I know is, that neither parr, nor smolts, nor salmon, have ever 
 been taken by the most experienced angler above the falls of 
 Clyde. Their accidental appearance there can only be explained 
 in the way 1 have mentioned, or by the still easier method of 
 carrying the fish about to spav/n above the highest fall. 
 
 "Among these wild mountains 
 
 Shall still be my path ; 
 
 Each stream foaming down 
 
 Its own green mountain strath." 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE TAREOW — THE ETTRICK — ST. MAEY'S LOCH — LOCH OF 
 THE LOWS. 
 
 "The hills whence classic Yarrow flows." 
 
 The Grordon Arms, and the cottage kept by a lone widow in a 
 romantic spot between the Loch of the Lows and St. Mary's 
 Loch, have ever been favourite haunts of anglers, young and old, 
 honest and false, for they are of both sorts. I had never the 
 good fortune to fish the Yarrow or the Ettrick when in proper 
 condition, and can therefore say but little concerning these, no 
 doubt, excellent streams. The lochs just named contain numerous 
 trout, and some exceedingly large ones have at times been taken. 
 Parr also abound, and it was with parr, caught in Yarrow, that 
 the Ettrick shepherd attempted to prove the parr to be a young 
 salmon, by cutting off a portion of the mort fin, or otherwise 
 marking them, and watching their return from the ocean as 
 grilses and salmon. The farmhouse he occasionally occupied 
 
130 FISH AND FISHi:JfG IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 (for he rambled from home as often as he could), stands on a 
 rising ground not far from Yarrow's banks. I never hear his 
 name mentioned now ; yet he wrote some sweet songs, and was 
 no doubt a man of genius. But as Horatius Flaccus ecUpsed all 
 minor poets of his day, obscuring or even destroying reputations 
 which, but for the great luminary, would have sparkled and shone, 
 so Bums put out the lesser lights of his age. To the south of 
 Yarrow stretches a vast, naked, hilly country ; a sheep walk, in 
 fact, of great extent. It is Ettrick Forest, but like the Black 
 Forest of Caledonia, not a tree remains. 
 
 Minch Moor separates Yarrow from Tweed. At the foot of 
 Minch Moor is Philiphaugh and Broad Meadows, and in the 
 village close at hand, the angler curious in such matters will find 
 a singular colony of Mulattoes. They originated in one coloured 
 man, brought, I beheve, from India (but not a Hindoo), who, 
 marrying a white woman, gave rise to this progeny of Mulat- 
 toes. They consist now, or lately did, of several families. 
 When the gipsies come into the valley, they talk of these 
 Mulattoes as " our people," claiming a sort of kindred with 
 them; and thus the black blood spreads and spreads singu- 
 larly enough, under circumstances seemingly adverse to it. Some 
 curious physiological inquiries, resulting from such expeiiments, 
 wdll naturally occur to my readers ; inquiries which might be 
 and have been extended from trout to man. 
 
 Further than what I have said, I have no experience of 
 Yarrow and Ettrick. They seem good streams, but must in many 
 places be sadly fished and poached. Some fish with an instru- 
 ment called the otter, especially in the lochs ; it is very destruc- 
 tive, but I never saw it used ; I have alluded to it in the Intro- 
 duction of this work. 
 
 I had almost forgotten to say that, in the Megget water, 
 which joins the Yarrow, near the Gordon Arms, pink-coloured 
 trout are reported to exist. When I was there the stream was 
 so low as to be wholly unfishable. It is a mere brawling burn, 
 but not to be despised on that account. 
 
THE TEYIOT AND KALE. 131 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 THE TEVIOT AKD THE KALE. 
 
 The angler may fish the Teviot at many points, but a few 
 miles above Kelso, from Kalemouth downwards, he will find to 
 be as good as any. It is an admirable trout ing stream ; in it he 
 will find in abundance the common red spotted trout, the parr 
 trout — parr most plentiful — and, in due season, sea trout and 
 salmon, smolts of both kinds. Early in May, in fine weather, 
 I have seen the pools of the Teviot alive with salmon, descending 
 with the smolts to the ocean. The kelts, or spawn-grown fish, 
 generally refuse all bait. Large fish may be found dead amongst 
 the rocks, seemingly exhausted by their winter residence 
 without food in the fresh water ; weakened also by the act of 
 spawning. Those which get to the ocean soon recover their 
 strength and flesh ; the insect which attacks their gills in fresh 
 water dies and falls ofiP; and they return again and again to their 
 natal streams. 
 
 To fish Teviot you require to wade, and that sometimes deeply. 
 Minnow is your best bait, but the artificial fly answers well 
 enough. Change them frequently, until you hit on the taking 
 6y. Breakfast in Kelso, and, provided with a short salmon-rod, 
 you will reach the Teviot time enough to have a good day's 
 sport. What does the poet say ? 
 
 *'The huntsman loves the early morn. 
 The angler seeks at noon 
 The river side and shady bank," &c. 
 
 THE KALE. 
 
 High in a lone vale of the Cheviot, on the path that but 
 lately was nightly trodden by the contrabandists, and in former 
 times by Scotch and English border robbers in search of prey, 
 springs the Kale, a fine fishing stream, but inferior to the 
 
 K 2 
 
132 risH a:n^i> fishi^'G lis Scotland. 
 
 Wliitadder. To fish this stream advantageously, the angler 
 should take up his residence at a village situated on its banks^ 
 about seven miles to the south of Kelso, near the entrance to 
 the valley I have just mentioned. From this village to Kale 
 mouth, where it joins the Teviot, there are many fine streams 
 and pools. Trout of the usual kind abound, and salmon and 
 sea trout ascend the Kale, but I never saw any parr ; and I have 
 been assured by those Avho know the river well, that parr are not 
 to be found in the Kale. It is a most remarkable circumstance, 
 were the fact fully proved, but negative evidence is generally 
 defective. Fine walks may be had all around. You are on the 
 edge or shoulder of the Cheviot. 
 
 When tired of the Kale, the angler may reach in a short 
 wallc the Beaumont and College, feeders of the Glen and the Till. 
 But to fish these without discomfort and extreme fatigue, he 
 had better make Town Yetliolm his head quarters for a few days. 
 He is now in Gripsy Land. 
 
 Musing on the past, I wander in imagination by the banks of 
 the Kale, and by Tweedside. Where are the friends of my 
 early years ? dead, broken, dispersed, gone. Where the rich 
 farmers who rented these farms ? depressed, sunk, ruined. The 
 palace, strong and eternal, reposes on its primogeniture and 
 feudal rights : the eotter exists, protected by the contempt which 
 poverty, ignorance, and a hopelessly pitiful state naturally 
 engender. But the middle class man disappears ; rent consumes 
 first his profits and next his capital. The little property he had 
 t?inks into the jaws of the territorial lion. 
 
 It is sufficiently curious that, in the district of which I now 
 speak, the swollen neck, so common in Derbyshire, is met with 
 frequently. This is the land for the Cheviot sheep, turnips, and 
 large farms, and entei'prise. 
 
THE TILL AKD ITS TKIBUTAEIES. 133 
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 THE TILL AND ITS TRIBUTABIES. 
 
 THE BEAUMONT THE COLLEGE WATEE THE QLEN". 
 
 The angler, about to fish these streams, sliould leave Kelso 
 before breakfast. A walk of about six miles brings him to Town 
 Yetholm. Here he should rest a few hours, arranging his 
 tackle, refreshing himself thoroughly, put on his fishing shoes, 
 and having secured a supply of live minnows, or which have 
 just lived, let him proceed to fish the Beaumont. My first 
 impressions were unfavourable to the Beaumont. I had no 
 minnows, and the water was low. The trout seemed scarce, and 
 the few taken were small. But a short wa}^ down the stream, I 
 overtook an aged fox-hunter, a stalwart man of sixty at least, 
 upright, strong and massive, gentlemanly and frank. We met 
 as brother anglers and freemasons do, and were acquainted at 
 once. His tackle consisted of a strong short rod, and good firm 
 line, which he kept also short. A boy attended him with an 
 old tin narrow-necked oil jar ; this held the minnows, alive and 
 ready for use ; they could not possibly escape out of the narrow- 
 necked jar. He fished only with minnow ; knew where all the 
 large trout lay ; caught them only ; and was cool, collected, and 
 pleasant, as became an old English squire of the Vernon breed. 
 
 I learned his history by merely remarking that there were 
 good fishing streams in Northumberland, from which I presume 
 he came. "But m fact," said he, "I live here with my family 
 to economise" (he was still, I should think, some seventeen stone 
 weight) . "I have a house near the village here, and amuse 
 myself in this way." " But in following the Northumberland 
 hounds," I said, " you must have known my excellent friend, 
 
 Henry W ." " What ? " .he said, " Henrj- W your 
 
 friend? then we also are friends, for a nobler heart never lived." 
 And so it was. They had lived like brothers, and followed the 
 fox-hounds so long as they could follow them. But a hundred 
 
134 FISII AXD nsnijH'G in SCOTLAIs'D. 
 
 thousand pounds are soon got through in this way. My friend 
 
 Henry W economised in the northern capital, and took 
 
 to mineralogy and geology. The fine old fellow I was then 
 conversing with, having no taste for books or science, rusticated 
 and fished, and well he fished, especially with minnow. To 
 succeed with minnow as a bait, a man ought to be at least five 
 feet ten inches ; strong armed, strong wristed. A shorter man 
 is unable to cause the minnow to touch the water as gently as a 
 fly, which it ought to do ; but unless he does so, he will alwa3^s 
 be an inferior minnow fisher. Non omnia omnibus is the law of 
 Oxford, although the dons have not acted up to the spirit of the 
 proposition, and a very good law it is. Paley would have said 
 it was so intended, and so no doubt it was, otherwise it would 
 not have been so. But when he pushes this a little further, 
 and argues that it must be a providential arrangement, that all 
 men are not pushing, active, striving, energetic, industrious, he 
 uses a double-edged knife, dangerous to him who employs it. 
 
 We left our pleasant brother of the angle and his little rustic 
 tiny page, promising to call when next we returned to the village, 
 and proceeded down the Beaumont ; but finding that we really 
 were not duly prepared to fish its short streams and semi-stagnant 
 pools, we returned, determined to try the College wat er, another 
 tributary of the Till. The Beaumont we have just left arises on 
 the north aspect of the high or great Cheviot ; the College, I 
 rather think, from its eastern flank. The level summit of the 
 high Cheviot is said to be a morass, whence these streams flow. 
 
 THE COLLEGE WATER. 
 
 tow:n" tetholm — gipsy la:??©. 
 
 The morning was dull and misty ; it had rained a little, but 
 not sufficient to influence the water. It was the commencement 
 of May, and the gipsy tribe was clustered as it were on the slope of 
 the Cheviot, overhanging Town Yetholm. They were still in 
 their winter quarters. In England, the dark-skinned, black-eyed, 
 Asiatic race, boast of never sleeping under a roof. Not so in 
 Scotland. A considerable body exchange annually, as winter sets 
 
THE GIPSY EACE. 135 
 
 in, their summer tents for thatched huts. From these hovels 
 they early in May decamp with the salmon fry, which, collecting 
 in shoals, leave for the vast ocean the waters in which they first 
 appeared ; so, at a signal, as it were, and in a day, the gipsy 
 breaks up his encampment ; all go with them, old and young ; 
 they move hke a flock of birds, as if not intending ever to return. 
 A return with them is merely a contingent, not a necessity. 
 
 As yet, they roosted in the village through which we passed 
 whilst ascending the first range of the Cheviot, over which we 
 were directed to pass to reach the collateral valley in which runs, 
 shut in between two ridges of the Cheviot, the College water ; a 
 clear crystal brook, winding for miles through a lonely glen, all 
 but uninhabited, and chiefly tenanted by the Cheviot sheep. 
 
 As we passed through the village, I was anxious to get a sight 
 of some of its inhabitants. Unlike what we find in a Scottish 
 village, nobody was to be seen ; ever watchful, ever suspicious. 
 So, knocking boldly at the door of one of the huts, I asked my 
 way to the College water. Immediately a young woman ap- 
 peared ; the only really beautiful gipsy I had ever seen : she 
 came out to point out to me the road I sought. On raising up 
 her arm, the short sleeve exposed a good deal of the part above 
 the elbow ; a circular leprous spot caught my eye, and I looked 
 at my companion. She was instantly sensible that I had dis- 
 cerned the curse of the race, and, blushing deeply, retired into 
 the interior of the hut. 
 
 We journeyed onwards towards the College water, which was 
 soon reached, for the distance is not great. We were in hopes of 
 overtaking the salmon fry, which we knew were, like the gipsies, 
 preparing to migrate. But in the College water we found only 
 small trout of both kinds, and parr abundantly. Just as we had 
 begun to despair of seeing the smolt of the season, we reached a 
 small dam head at the commencement of the Glen — the name 
 the united streams of the Beaumont and College waters receive : 
 in this dam-head, retarded by it, and awaiting the first May 
 flood, swarmed the smolt in thousands. The fry is far from being 
 timid or delicate in its food Hke the salmon. It leaps at an 
 artificial fly readily, like the parr, in places where the common 
 trout will not look at it. We caught a few, to be quite sure 
 
136 nsH AKD risHiNa rs scotlatstd. 
 
 that they, like the gipsies, were there on such a day, and jour- 
 neying up the Beaumont to Town Yetholm, soon reached our 
 resting-place for the night. 
 
 The desire to discover the unknown, in the interests of science 
 only, without any reference to a practical bearing, is a rare quality 
 of the human mind. Paley would say, again, that this is ar- 
 ranged most providentially, else mankind would become speedily 
 a world of theorists, in which all invented and none applied. 
 Laputa, which Swift left traversing amidst the clouds, would 
 descend upon earth, there to rest and to abide for ever. Soon 
 would the fields cease to be productive. Men would be engaged 
 in endeavouring to secure sunbeams in hermetically-sealed 
 bottles ; in extracting sunbeams from cucumbers. The quadra- 
 ture of the circle would not be forgotten, nor the perpetual motion. 
 
 But he need not fear that anything of the sort will ever 
 happen in England or in Holland. The natives are "wide 
 awake." At any time, should it be expedient so to do, they 
 will call a " hawk a handsaw," but they never mistake the 
 one for the other, whatever be the set of the wind. When my 
 esteemed friend Henry Witham told me one day that it was a 
 curious fact that about the same time he and another foxhunter 
 had both abandoned the chase of foxes for geological pursuits, 
 for science, I cou.ld not help smiling. It is possible, I said, 
 quite possible, but see that you do not convert an honest fox- 
 hunter into a wily pseudo philosopher, affecting to look for, in 
 Siberia and elsewhere, that game which he well knows lives much 
 nearer home. 
 
 THE TILL. 
 
 I never fished the Glen lower than the spot just mentioned ; 
 but I am aware that it is a good angling stream. Its banks 
 are quiet, pleasant, and have an English look. The Glen in 
 fact, is chiefly in England or on the borders. We crossed the 
 country and sought the banks of the Till, a rather sluggish, 
 slow running stream, but favourable to the angler. I fished it 
 at a stream below the mill on the road to the Tweed. The 
 usual trout appeared, but I learned that the river is frequented 
 by salmon and sea trout, and pike or jack. I have caught perch 
 
CttGANTIC rOLLY IfEAR THE TILL. 137 
 
 in lakes when I was a boy, but have been fortunate enough 
 never to take a jack. Yet pike or jack is very good eating, and 
 did I fish for the table, I should not think of despising him. 
 Gourmands tell me that soup made of small perch, quite fresh, 
 that is, taken a short while before, is the most exquisite and the 
 most nourishing of all soups. 
 
 In travelling near the Till we saw, one day, a vast tower 
 "looming in the distance," Hke Tadmor in the Desert. Yet, 
 somehow, it had not altogether the air of a ruin, so we made for 
 it. It was a gigantic folly, the produce of a mind disturbed by 
 the laws of primogeniture, baronial privileges, feudal rights, 
 entail. It had ruined its unhappy proprietors. What it had 
 already cost, I wiU not venture to say, but it was without a roof, 
 windows, doors, or furniture of any description. It reminded 
 me of what Vincennes would look like in ruins. The rooks flew 
 in and the rooks flew out, and ever as ten thousand pomids were 
 laid out on it, other ten thousand were wanted to repair the 
 damage of last winter's storms. It was a sad spectacle. 
 
 Again I visited the Till, but with another companion. We 
 fished the same stream early in May ; the easterly wind blew 
 cold, and the day was cheerless and melancholy. Never reniain 
 on the stream side when the east winds are blowing, pinching up 
 fair natm'e's face, and making all things look hideous. My 
 companion was the type whence the clever author of Pickwick 
 has drawn his Alfred Jingle, Esquire. Type, did I say ? But 
 for a slight anachronism, I would have sworn to their identity. 
 Even he could not rouse our spirits ; so we spurred homewards, 
 crossing the plains of Northumberland, the wooded glades of 
 Berwickshire, and gaining the northern slope of the Lammermuir 
 soon saw the Crag of SaHsbury and Arthm-'s Seat. 
 
 Jingle now sleeps, not with his fathers, but with Franklin, at 
 the bottom of the Frozen Ocean, awaiting the next geological 
 revolution, when a new order of things shall arise, and the men 
 of that day, should there be any, speculate on the position which 
 Jingle may have held in the animated creation. He has with 
 him, I believe, three or four feet cut from ofi" the legs of Chinese 
 women, and preserved in spirits. What future geologists will 
 sav of this I cannot imasrine. 
 
138 risH AWD FisHiifa i^' Scotland. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE TWEED. 
 
 The Tweed, so celebrated in song, is of all the rivers of Scotland 
 the best suited for angling, and an angler might pass a pleasant 
 week or fortnight in fishing the Tweed from Tweedsmuir to 
 Norham or even to Whitadder mouth, confining his sport 
 strictly to the stream itself. Many beautiful and many wild 
 scenes would he pass through. There are interruptions, it is 
 true, to the angler's course, but fewer, I believe, than occur on 
 any stream of its magnitude. His best course would be to 
 commence at the Bield, well provided with tackle, but not 
 encumbered ; for the tru^ angler, like the soldier, should not 
 only carry all he requires with him, but be able to angle freely, 
 to cross a stream, to perform a long march, climb mountains, 
 and be prepared to sleep under the thatched roof or marble- 
 porched hall, as chance or fortune may direct. As an angler he 
 will be welcome everywhere, at least I have always found it so. 
 
 I have described the fishing at the Bield and in Tala ; silvery 
 streams and soft reaches, running over a gravelly pebbled bottom, 
 lead on through a land of heather and pasture to Peebles. 
 Although I have not fished over this ground, I am disposed to 
 recommend it to the angler. Should the river be swollen, he 
 ought not to attempt crossing it by Avading through fords which 
 he knows not. Foreign travel and the incidents of war make 
 some bold, and enable them to do that with ease which a civilian, 
 though a brave man, might shrink from, or by attempting lose 
 his life. I was travelling one summer day from Dunse to Mill- 
 know, by Elmsford. On reaching the cottage I found the river to 
 be swollen, much flooded, and impassable otherwise than by 
 swimming. Unhesitatingly I entered the stream on my good 
 grey mare, although I had never swum her across but once before ; 
 but knowing well that all horses swim, and so fearing nothing, 
 she boldly struck out in water which might be ten feet deep. 
 The people on the other side called out to me not to attempt it. 
 
THE TWEED — CLOYENFOED. 139 
 
 but I heeded tliem not. I had swum, the flooded Keiskemma on 
 horseback, crossed the Anatolo mountains, and Hved for years ou 
 the Fisch River Bosch, and so laughed at the idea of being 
 stopped by the Whitadder. 
 
 The Tweed runs through a wild country from Romano Bridge 
 and the Lyne to Peebles. With this track of the river I am 
 not much acquainted. At Peebles, the angler cannot fail of 
 sport, whilst lower down, at Clovenford, he is sure to meet with 
 salmon. It is not worth while fishing the Tweed, especially 
 at this point, with a rod of less than twenty or more feet 
 in length ; and if you put on a pair of grilse flies, see that the 
 running-line be clear, presenting no obstacles to the run of the 
 fish. I once hooked a seven-pound salmon in a stream near 
 Clovenford ; it ran out some forty feet of line in an instant. I 
 held on as well as I could ; deep pools formed by heaps of stones, 
 thrown in to protect the banks, flanked me on either side. I 
 moved round one of these with great difficulty, and reached a 
 gravelly and open bank. The salmon now ran directly across 
 the river, and brought the top end of the rod under the water. 
 I could do no more than hold on. At last he fatigued him- 
 self so much that I managed to get him safely landed on the 
 gravelly bank. When the angler reaches Kelso, he will find a 
 different mode of fishing for salmon practised. The river is all 
 taken, but the fisherman will hire a boat to you, and assist you 
 with rod, line, &c. ; the charge is moderate. What salmon or 
 sea trout you take, you may have at a reasonable charge. I 
 think nothing of this kind of fishing. Commend me to the 
 river bank, taking every chance. It is the exercise, the exertion, 
 the skill required, which constitutes the pleasure of angling; 
 now roaming by some steep mountain side, now through the 
 precipitous rocky gorge, or following the stream as it bursts 
 forth from its hilly barriers, winding through woodlands and 
 fields rich in grain. To follow the stream free and unrestrained 
 is my delight, little booting whether the basket be filled or not ; 
 there is always enough to amuse, to interest, to induce me to 
 travel onwards, never tired of the landscape, to me ever new, 
 ever changing. 
 
 At Kelso, the angler, if a gourmand, may have salmon cooked 
 
140 riSH A^B -ElSKl^Gt 11^ SCOTLAND. 
 
 the minute it comes from the river. I do not advise it ; it has 
 a pecuHar odour and flavour. Life is not altogether extinct 
 when placed in the kettle, and it tells on the fish when cooked. 
 I should not think it quite wholesome. Beef may be eaten when 
 the ox has been just killed, and it will be found quite tender, 
 but it is not wholesome. The stiffening of the muscles, which 
 always sooner or later follows the extinction of life, should be 
 permitted to • take place, and to go off, before the flesh is fit for 
 use. Crimping qf fish is supposed to hasten the process, by more 
 speedily exhausting the life which remains in the muscles after 
 the death of the animal. 
 
 Leaving Kelso, then, to wander down Tweed, the angler need 
 not be told how to proceed. The river is generally open for the 
 mere trout fisher, or the way may be smoothed by means of a 
 trifle. But it becomes broader and deeper as you proceed by 
 Ooldstream and Norham, rendering deep wading more and 
 more necessary, more and more dangerous. The double-handed 
 rod must now be used even for trout, and these trout, as an 
 article of food, are scarcely worth eating. 
 
 But the angler does not heed this ; his aim is health, solitude, 
 and the contemplation of Nature. From this he draws fresh 
 ideas, pleasing recollections, not the less, perhaps, that a slight 
 melancholy may give to them a tinge of yellow sere, which, 
 spreading all around, reminds him that winter — hideous, aged, 
 wrmkled winter — is about once more to strip the forest of its leaves, 
 the fields of their verdant tinge, the stream of its silvery trans- 
 lucent hue, sparing nothing, blacking the field, the mountain ; 
 the forest trees, which erst were beautiful, most beautiful, warm, 
 young, vigorous, have now settled down, withered by Time's 
 relentless hand into emblems of soul-despairing decay and frigid 
 death. 
 
 With a sigh and lingering look, the angler (juits the river side, 
 repairing once more to the busy haunts of men, to return, let us 
 hope, next year to his favourite pursuits, when the leaves are on 
 the trees, and the lambs in the fields. 
 
 And now reader, gentle reader, farewell ; for if a true angler, 
 you are sure to be gentle. We may meet on Yarrow, by .the Loch 
 of the Lows, or on Ettrick ; it may be on Tweedside or by St. 
 
METAMOEPHOSES OP THE SMOLT. 141 
 
 Bathan's, near the mill opposite Wherburn Glen. Should it be 
 so, and you of the right sort, we shall soon be good friends, 
 whatever be your rank in life; for as Scotland's poet has 
 written, — 
 
 '* The rank is but the guinea's stamp, 
 The man's the man for a' that. " 
 
 SOME EEMAEKS ON THE PEOPAOATION OF THE 
 SALMON BY AETIFICIAL MEANS, 
 
 AND ON 
 
 THE GEOWTH AND METAMORPHOSES OF THE FRY. 
 
 The propagation of the salmon by what has been called the 
 artificial method may ultimately prove a useful measure, but it 
 seems to me to be attended with considerable difficulties. With 
 adequate protection for the salmon, the smolt, and the ova, no 
 artificial methods can ever be required. The ova are protected by 
 being deposited under the gravel ; but it is difficult to suggest a 
 mode of protecting the very young fry. After they have become 
 what we call smolts, man is their chief enemy. Should it be 
 ultimately proved that the young salmon remain a year in the 
 river before they become smolts prepared to descend to the ocean, 
 then, adequately to protect the salmon, it will become necessary 
 to forbid angling in salmon rivers at all times. The sport of 
 angling must cease. 
 
 The wood engraving on the next page gives a good idea of 
 the apparatus employed in the artificial propagation of the 
 salmon. Early in winter, when the salmon ready to spawn have 
 entered the rivers, two are caught, a male and female, and the 
 ova and milt are gently pressed from the spawning fish, and 
 received into a trough, and being mixed together, are covered 
 over to some inches' depth with gravel, &c. The utmost care 
 must be taken that a constant stream of fresh water runs through 
 this trough, in order to maintain the vitality of the ova deposited 
 
142 EEMARKS ON THE PKOPAaATTON OF SALMON 
 
 EXPLANATION. 
 
 A Water supply from cistern, constantly running. 
 01 Plate-glass tank, contairiing artificially produced salmon-fry. 
 c c Pipes conducting water out of tank to model below. 
 D D Troughs in which OAa are being hatched, filled with clean gravel. 
 K K Gratings through which water passes to gravel. 
 G Model of river containing salmon-fry. 
 H Weir across river. 
 
 M Fish-pass over weir, to enable the fish to ascend to the upper waters without inter- 
 fering with the water power above. 
 N Elver below weir. 
 
BY AETIFICIAL MEANS. 143 
 
 under the gravel, and at least six inches of water must be kept 
 over the gravel. 
 
 In due time — that is, in about one hundred and twenty days, 
 more or less, according to a variety of circumstances unnecessary 
 to enumerate — the salmon eggs are incubated or hatched, and 
 ascend through the gravel into the waters above the gravel, from 
 which trough, according to the arrangements provided, they may 
 be transmitted into a wide space, such as a wide trough, or, what 
 will far better serv^e the purpose, a tank or pool, made in the 
 course of a brook, or small stream. Here they must be fed arti- 
 ficially ; and this is the only artificial part of the process of the 
 so-called artificial propagation of the salmon. The food best 
 adapted for them has been found to be beef finely chopped ; on 
 this, it has been, I think, shown they may live for a year ; at the 
 end of which period they undergo the last metamorphosis natural 
 to them during their sojourn in the fresh waters, prior to their 
 descending to the ocean — that is, they become suddenly covered all 
 over with silvery scales, and are then recognised and admitted by 
 all to be salmon smolts or the young of salmon or of salmon- 
 trout, no fresh-water trout being ever known to undergo this 
 metamorphosis. 
 
 But prior to the great change, which may indeed be called the 
 great climacteric in the life of the salmon, when in a few days, it 
 may be a few hours, he is about to exchange the crystal streams 
 of a mountain inland torrent for the dark abysses of the briny 
 ocean, in search of food and a feeding-ground wholly unknown 
 to him, peculiar and as yet undiscovered by man ; prior to 
 this grand change in the life of the salmon, he has already under- 
 gone, and has still to undergo, many metamorphoses. Losing 
 the long, continuous fins connecting him by the laws of unity with 
 the former world throughout all time, he gradually acquires the 
 fins peculiar to the natural family to which he belongs. When 
 quite young, indeed up to the time he becomes a smolt, the j^oung 
 of all species of the salmonidse strongly resemble each other — 
 that is, they have the same system of colouration, of fins, of den- 
 tition. As they grow to maturity, each of the three great natural 
 families lays aside certain characters, retaining those which are 
 peculiar to it. The system of colouring common to all the sal- 
 
144 EEMARKS OlSr THE PEOPAGATIOS" OF S ALMOIN. 
 
 monidsD when young, consists of — 1. Red spots ; 2, dark spots ; 
 3, parr markings. Of these, the adult true salmon retains only a 
 few dark spots above the lateral line ; the sea trout retains many 
 dark spots ; the lake trout also retains the dark spots ; the river 
 trout retains the red spots. One species of river trout retains 
 the red spots and the parr markings. 
 
 As regards the dentition, the true salmon retains of the vome- 
 rine teeth only the transverse ones ; the sea trout retains, be- 
 sides these, a single short row of vomerine teeth behind the trans- 
 verse ; in the fresh-water trout of all sorts this mesial row is 
 always double. • In the young of all, the dentition is the same. 
 
 The great difficulty in the history of the salmon-fry is to 
 determine the length of time it remains in the river from the 
 time it leaves the gravel, about an inch in length, to the moment 
 when it is about to leave the river for the ocean. This period 
 is limited by some to three weeks or a month ; by others, it is 
 extended to two years. Upon the correct determination of this 
 period rests the solution of the two important questions, namely, 
 the propagation and protection of the salmon. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Savill and Edwards, Printers, Chandos Street, Covent Gaxden. 
 
/it-^ 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 
 FORM NO. DD6, 40m, 3/78 BERKELEY, CA 94720 
 
 ®s 
 
m (0477 
 

 ^m^'^im 
 
 
 S^Pfe 
 
 >^*•=.■:.;^•- 
 
 ^vv^f^^ ... ■v.y