THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 MEMORIES OF THE MONTHS 
 
 SECOND SERIES
 
 Memories of the Months 
 
 SECOND SERIES 
 BY THE RIGHT HON. 
 
 SIR HERBERT MAXWELL 
 
 BART., M.P., F.R.S. 
 
 Horas non numero nisifelices 
 
 LONDON 
 EDWARD ARNOLD 
 
 37 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND 
 1900
 
 Edinburgh : T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty
 
 DEDICATION TO 
 B. M. M. 
 
 Mademoiselle, je commence a dcrire 
 
 parceque je n'ai rien a faire ; je 
 
 finis parceque je n'ai rien 
 
 cl dire. 
 
 733385
 
 PREFACE 
 
 IT is probably a mere philological accident, devoid of 
 moral significance, that, in the whole of the English 
 version of the Old and New Testaments, there is not 
 a single instance of the use of the substantives ' enjoy- 
 ment' and 'happiness.' Frequent mention of 'joy' 
 and ' pleasure,' but the first seems to verge too closely 
 upon the boisterous, or at least the exuberant, and the 
 other to have become tainted too grossly in human 
 handling to express precisely the sensation stirred by 
 weather fair or foul, by noble landscape, by the every- 
 day operations of nature, and by communion, oral or 
 literary, with higher intellects than our own. One 
 derives pleasure from, and feels joy in, all such things, 
 but they inspire something incapable of interpretation 
 by either of these terms; something which the 
 French denote by bonheur, and we, in defiance of 
 obvious etymology, by ' happiness.' 
 
 This mood of happiness is not to be separated from 
 a sense of gratitude towards an object more or less 
 definite, yet is so fleeting withal, that the mood and
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 the sense are prone to pass away together and leave no 
 trace upon memory. Not upon conscious memory, at 
 least ; for it is believed that every experience sets an 
 impression, indelible except by disease, upon the 
 almost incalculably delicate machinery of reminiscence, 
 and that such impression may be revived at will, pro- 
 vided the intelligence has not lost record of the 
 precise tissue or ganglion in which it is stored. Some 
 memories we constantly recall without conscious 
 effort, familiarity rendering them easy of access ; others, 
 deeply overlaid by later experience, have to be pain- 
 fully sought for, or lie dormant till some chance a 
 sentence spoken or a passage read drives the blood 
 along the delicate capillaries about their hiding-place. 
 ' Curious that I never remembered that till now,' you 
 ejaculate, as some long forgotten scene or passage leaps 
 to light, its outlines, even its details, scarcely dimmed 
 by long immurement. 
 
 Impressions of happiness or enjoyment seem to be 
 more transient than those of distress or suffering. Few 
 spirits are of such fibre that they can bear the legend 
 of the sundial Horas non numero nisi serenas ; yet 
 many a weary or anxious mind would derive refresh- 
 ment from reflection upon the moments when it was 
 agreeably employed upon small matters, did it but 
 possess an easy clue through the labyrinth of retrospect. 
 There is no such simple clue as written notes, not in
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 the hazardous form of a regular journal that is a far 
 different affair but more in that of a commonplace- 
 book. Even that has the disadvantage of getting too 
 bulky, not to mention the unhandiness of manuscript 
 for reference. Therefore, a few years ago, I printed 
 some pages from the notebooks of several seasons, 
 which met with a very indulgent reception from the 
 public, notwithstanding that some of them had 
 appeared already in newspapers. So many persons, 
 both in this country and America, wrote to me in 
 reference to Memories of the Months, that I am 
 encouraged to hope that others, besides myself, may 
 derive some recreation from a second series. 
 
 HERBERT MAXWELL. 
 
 MONREITH, September 1900.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. IS ANIMAL LIFE SACRED ? 1 
 
 II. WILLIAM SCROPE 7 
 
 III. SCIENCE IN WANT OF A COMMON LANGUAGE . . 14 
 
 IV. PROTECTIVE COLORATION . . . . . 15 
 V. A NEW EAGLE , , . . . . > . 18 
 
 VI. THE SNOWDROP . . . .... . 20 
 
 VII. GORSE AND GROMWELL . . . . . . 21 
 
 VIII. FROSTED HEATHER . . . . . . . 22 
 
 IX. THE BADGER . 24 
 
 X. MERCY IN FIELD SPORTS 27 
 
 XI. WINTER NOTES . . 32 
 
 XII. FOWLS OF THE AIR 37 
 
 XIIA. RABBIT- PROOF PLANTS . . 48 
 
 XIII. A MILD WINTER 49 
 
 XIV. THE CURLEW SANDPIPER 51 
 
 XV. FUDDLING CHUB 52 
 
 XVI. FROM A HIGHLAND STRATH . . . . . . 53 
 
 XVII. THE PASSING OF WINTER 56 
 
 XVIII. SPRING SALMON . . . ' 60 
 
 XIX. THE YEW . .. . 66 
 
 XX. FLOWERLESS PLANTS 68 
 
 XXI. THE MOLE 71 
 
 XXII. A BLANK DAY'S FISHING . . ... 7 
 
 XXIII. WHEN DAFFODILS BEGIN TO PEER 83
 
 xii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XXIV. SAURIAN BIPEDS 87 
 
 XXV. ALAS ! FOR THE BIG GAME 93 
 
 XXVI. OWLS 97 
 
 XXVII. WILD BIRD PROTECTION 102 
 
 XXVIII. A REMARKABLE BLUE-BOOK 112 
 
 XXIX. FISH AND GAME PRESERVATION IN AMERICA . . 117 
 
 XXX. FLY-FISHING 122 
 
 XXXI. MAY IN DENMARK 126 
 
 XXXII. THE MAYFLY AND THE TROUT 132 
 
 XXXIII. CONCERNING THE SYCAMORE 137 
 
 XXXIV. SALMON FOR THE THAMES 140 
 
 XXXV. HARLING 145 
 
 XXXVI. DO SALMON FEED IN FRESH WATER? .... 150 
 
 XXXVII. NIGHTINGALES 155 
 
 XXXVIII. THROUGH TOURAINE ON TYRES 156 
 
 XXXIX. OF A CERTAIN MAYFLY 161 
 
 XL. THE HOLLY . . . . . . . .164 
 
 XLI. THE ROOK UPON HIS TRIAL 167 
 
 XLII. WATER SUPPLY . . * 170 
 
 XLIII. TOWN GARDENING AS IT MIGHT BE . . . . 176 
 
 XLIV. ON A HIGHLAND LOCH 182 
 
 XLV. THE MONSTER OF LOCH ARKAIG 188 
 
 XLVI. IN HIGHLAND WATERS 192 
 
 XLVII. THE PURPLE WATERHEN 198 
 
 XLVIII. WATER GARDENING 200 
 
 XLIX. SEA-TROUT . . ', 204 
 
 L. THE GREAT LAKE TROUT 210 
 
 LI. IN CORROUR FOREST 214 
 
 LII. ANOTHER DAY ON THE HILL 220 
 
 LIII. THE FIRST BREATH OK WINTER 225 
 
 LIV. CREATURES OF PREY 230 
 
 LV. DECENTLY AND IN ORDER . . 238
 
 CONTENTS xiii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LVI. TRAP REFORM 243 
 
 LVII. AUTUMN FLOWERS 245 
 
 LVIII. WHERE TWO KINGDOMS MEET 252 
 
 LIX. POCHARDS AND TUFTED DUCK . . . 258 
 
 LX. BERRIES j 259 
 
 LXI. AUTUMN ON THE TWEED 266 
 
 LXII. THE OSMANTHUS 276 
 
 I.XIII. THE BEST OF OAKS . . . ... . . 277 
 
 LXIV. A HILL TRAGEDY 279 
 
 LXV. THE AGE OF AN EAGLE . . . . . 281 
 
 LXVI. A VANISHING FOOD FISH 282 
 
 LXVII. MISTLETOE UPON THE OAK ..... 284 
 
 LXVIII. MY BOOKSHELVES . 285 
 
 APPENDIX. RABBIT-PROOF PLANTS 293
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 WHERE CREE AND MINNICK MEET .... Frontispiece. 
 
 ON LOCH MORE, CAITHNESS To face p. 60 
 
 BARGRENNAN LINN ,, 76 
 
 THE LORD OF THE FOREST ,,188 
 
 IN CORROUR FOREST . . . 214
 
 3fanuarp 
 
 THERE was a time, if belief may be placed in some 
 annalists, when certain practices of the Is Animal 
 French nobility gravely engaged the atten- ^f 683 - * 17 
 tion of the legislature. The story goes that a fashion- 
 able restorative for a seigneur fatigued with the chase, 
 and a sure remedy for cold feet, was to plunge the 
 said feet into the entrails of a freshly-killed peasant. 
 It was an expensive recipe in days when peasants, 
 counting as live-stock upon the lord's lands, con- 
 stituted an important part of his wealth, and probably 
 was only in use in the leading families ; nevertheless, 
 it was enacted that no lord returning from hunting 
 should use up more than two peasants in this way one 
 for each foot. Western Europeans have shifted their 
 sentimental standpoint since those distant and legend- 
 ary days. We are now so far from being indifferent to 
 preserving the humblest human life, that the resources 
 of science are strained to retain the vital spark, even in 
 those frail shards of humanity which, in a rougher age, 
 would have been broken in a very few years. Nobody 
 questions the moral duty of this, though it is permitted
 
 2 IS ANIMAL LIFE SACRED ? 
 
 to recognise some disadvantages accruing therefrom 
 to the human race, regarded simply as vertebrate 
 creatures. 
 
 But in speculating on the sacredness of life other than 
 human, the guiding principles are not so clear. Vege- 
 tarians apart, there are many earnest well-meaning 
 people who hold it unlawful to sacrifice life animal 
 life for any reason short of necessity. Be it said in 
 passing that these benevolent people draw the frontier 
 between the animal and vegetable kingdoms with a 
 precision which scientific men may envy, but cannot 
 emulate. Some of the humbler forms of cryptogams 
 have been ranged alternately in one realm and the 
 other, and still occupy the debatable land between the 
 two. Let us not, however, shelter ourselves behind any 
 such nice distinctions. The question to be answered is 
 simply this whether there is any peculiar reverence 
 due on moral grounds to what is popularly understood 
 as animal life. Let us not even take our stand on the 
 well-fortified position of food supply, but pass at once 
 to ground where necessity cannot be relied on as a 
 defence. 
 
 The tender-hearted people above referred to are speci- 
 ally severe on what we are brought up to call field 
 sports, but what they define as ' blood sports.' It is not 
 necessary, they say, to take the lives of animals of the 
 chase, therefore it is cruel and demoralising. Life is a 
 sacred thing ; and they invoke the legislature to protect 
 it, just as it has protected domestic animals against the 
 infliction of suffering. Now if life, per se, be admitted
 
 JANUARY 3 
 
 to be a sacred thing, see what a curious dilemma we 
 are landed in ! But for fox-hunting, foxes would have 
 become as extinct as wolves in the British Isles long 
 before our day. Fox-hunting, then, actually has been 
 the means of preserving the ' sacred thing,' and tens of 
 thousands of foxes have owed their existence to this 
 typical 'blood sport.' In pheasant shooting the case 
 seems still stronger. A man decides how many birds 
 he will have in his covers the following season five 
 hundred, a thousand, five thousand, according to his 
 means and the extent of his woods. He is absolute 
 master of the ' sacred thing ' at both ends ; he can call 
 into existence as many creatures as he can pay for, 
 and put an end to their existence on a given day, 
 provided he and his friends hold straight. 
 
 ' Ah ! but,' exclaims the humanitarian, ' that is the 
 worst case of all : life is sacred, and man has no right 
 to call it into existence merely for his amusement.' 
 
 Indeed ! then let it be hoped, for sake of consistency, 
 that the schoolroom of the humanitarian contains no 
 little girls who delight in mating canary birds, of which 
 the offspring are condemned to life-long imprisonment. 
 
 Be it noted that I am not discussing at present the 
 ultimate or immediate effect on human morals of playing 
 with life creating or destroying it but whether life is 
 a thing with which a man may play in that manner 
 without infringing the abstract moral law. One of the 
 most plausible points in the humanitarian argument is 
 that it is unlawful so to play with it : and it is a point, 
 in my judgment, far more worthy of consideration
 
 4 IS ANIMAL LIFE SACRED ? 
 
 than any used by those who denounce field sports on 
 political or economical grounds. 
 
 If we turn to Nature for light on the subject, we get 
 it plenty of it but of rather a lurid kind. Nobody 
 can have ventured beyond the threshold of animal 
 biology without being amazed by the recklessness 
 with which the ' sacred thing ' is squandered. The 
 mortality especially the infant mortality is some- 
 thing appalling. In England, during the decade from 
 1881 to 1890, the rate of human mortality sank to the 
 unprecedently low figure of 191 per thousand per 
 annum. In many organisms which pass through 
 several metamorphoses, not one in a thousand reaches 
 maturity. As an example of this wastefulness of life, 
 let us consider the domestic routine of a common 
 British insect known as the oil-beetle (Meloe) as lately 
 elucidated by M. Fabre and Professor Miall. In its 
 mature state this is a sluggish, unlovely creature, 
 feeding harmlessly enough on buttercups, but endowed 
 with the unpleasant faculty, enjoyed by many Coleoptera, 
 of distilling from its joints, when interfered with, a foul- 
 smelling juice. Every female is believed to lay three 
 batches of eggs in the course of a summer, each con- 
 sisting of from eight to nine thousand. They are 
 deposited in a hole in ground frequented by humble 
 bees. In due time, if all goes well, each egg emits a 
 small, exceedingly active, yellow larva. No waste 
 of life so far; but mark what follows. The horde of 
 larvce run about in desperate haste, trying to match 
 the colour of their bodies with the yellow centre of a
 
 JANUARY 5 
 
 composite flower, such as a meadow marguerite. To 
 do so, they ascend every stem they encounter ; many 
 of these are only grass stems, others bear flowers of the 
 wrong colour, which obliges them to descend and climb 
 another stem. A large percentage of these creatures 
 perish in the quest. A considerable number, however, 
 find a flower of the right kind, ensconce themselves 
 among the anthers, and lie perfectly still, waiting the 
 next momentous event. This will be the visit of a 
 flying insect. No sooner does one alight on the flower 
 than the concealed larva seizes the hairs of its thorax 
 with claws specially contrived for the purpose, and is 
 borne off whither I Ah, that is the strangest thing 
 of all. If it is a fly, a moth, a honey-bee to which it 
 has clung, the larva perishes. It must be a humble-bee 
 of a particular sort (Anthophora), by help of which 
 alone the larva can pass into its next stage. Supposing 
 it to have been lucky enough to have got into the right 
 train (perhaps not more than one in a thousand do so), 
 it has got some delicate work before it still. It must 
 hold on to its host till she flies home in order to deposit 
 an egg in the cell prepared for it. This cell is full of 
 honey, on the surface of which the egg is intended to 
 float. If the young oil-beetle were to fall into the 
 honey, it would assuredly perish ; it must wait till the 
 egg leaves the body of the bee, jump on it at that 
 moment, and sail about on the egg. It then begins its 
 first meal, devours the contents of the egg, and changes 
 into a fat maggot. In that state it acquires, for the 
 first time, a taste for honey; it empties the store
 
 6 IS ANIMAL LIFE SACRED ? 
 
 provided for the baby bee, goes asleep in the form of 
 a chrysalis or pupa ; and, finally, emerging a full-grown 
 oil-beetle, crawls forth to seek a mate and begin a 
 fresh chapter in the sordid history of its race. 
 
 Now what does all this suggest ? Does it not appear 
 that if life were really a ' sacred thing ' in a sense above 
 other natural forces, such as light and electricity, the 
 Designer of Nature would not have flung it about in 
 this contemptuous haphazard way? Would He not 
 have devised some means for perpetuating the race of 
 oil-beetles without such a prodigious rate of mortality ? 
 And what curious problems present themselves about 
 the life by which we set such store ! Is material 
 human life the same in essence as that of oil-beetles 
 and foxes and pheasants ? If not, where is the line to 
 be drawn ? To those who like to imagine human life 
 as something higher in kind, as well as in degree, than 
 that of the beasts of the field, it is a discouraging 
 thought that each is subject to similar influences, 
 depends equally on regular nourishment, endures each 
 its allotted span. It does not require proficiency in 
 the researches of Malthus to prove that men and 
 women multiply up to the limits of food supply with 
 as much certainty as mites in cheese or elephants in 
 a jungle. Is food plentiful in any given district? 
 There society will flourish and abound, to melt away as 
 soon as there is sign of shrinkage. 
 
 And there, for the present, must be left this knotty 
 question.
 
 JANUARY ? 
 
 II 
 
 These dark winter days and long evenings are 
 famous for looking up old friends in for- wmiam 
 gotten shelves. The bibliography of field Scrope 
 sports would, in itself, fill many volumes, and perhaps 
 no department of modern literature, except fiction, 
 ' pans out ' so poorly. Much of it consists of business- 
 like instruction how to kill, or a ledger-like chronicle 
 of what has been killed ; here and there a good soul is 
 moved to the endeavour to impart to the public some 
 of the emotions which affected him in the presence of 
 wild nature, resulting either in unfluent rhapsody which 
 stirs nobody, or in liberal extracts from the poets 
 which everybody either knows already or skips. But 
 there are exceptions. Here and there in the inter- 
 minable catalogue are books which it is a privilege to 
 know ; books that it is refreshment to drop into ; books 
 that speak of a world which seems far fresher than our 
 own, more leisurely, less methodical. Nowadays, for 
 instance, when a man goes a-fishing, he falls into a 
 fidget unless his fly is perpetually on the water. 
 Perhaps there is some record to beat, which can only 
 be done (and records exist but to be beaten) by feverish 
 attention to business; or the water is in prime order 
 a condition which, in modern salmon rivers, seems 
 far more fleeting than of yore ; not a moment must be 
 lost ; Viator, Venator, Poietes, Physicus all the simple 
 interrogators that used to tempt Piscator into delightful 
 irrelevancy have been hustled off the scene ; we have
 
 8 WILLIAM SCROPE 
 
 no idle moment for milkmaids and syllabubs ; informa- 
 tion and instruction must be compressed into business- 
 like paragraphs. 
 
 Heaven forbid that we should revive the dear shades! 
 This is no scene for them. We have no time to waste 
 with Theophilus while, 'lest precipitancy spoil his 
 sport, he preponders his rudiments,' nor patience for 
 Kichard Franck while he ' expostulates the antiquities 
 of Kilmarnock' when we want to read about fishing. 
 Nevertheless, there are moments when it is good to 
 meet with a sportsman who retains traces of a liberal 
 education, who does not make us shiver by treating 
 ' lay ' as an intransitive verb, and enriches his narrative 
 with observations on character and scenery. Such a 
 writer is William Scrope, whose whole literary works 
 are comprised in two rather brief and very charming 
 volumes Tlie Art of Deer-stalking and Lays and 
 Nights of Salmon Fishing. If ever there were an 
 exception to Dr. Johnson's dogma, that none but a 
 blockhead ever wrote except for money, this writer 
 were he. Scrope, the owner of Castle Combe, in 
 Wiltshire, the last male representative of the historic 
 Lords Scrope of Bolton, was of perfectly independent 
 means, and wrote, as he painted, purely as an amateur 
 out of love of the art. Sir Walter Scott pronounced 
 'the little artist' as he calls him in his journal to be 
 'one of the best amateur painters I ever saw, Sir 
 George Beaumont scarcely excepted ' ; but Scott was 
 sleeping in Dryburgh before The Art of Deer-stalking 
 was written. By that time Scrope, having had experi-
 
 JANUARY 9 
 
 ence of ten years in the forest of Athol, was well 
 qualified to undertake the first treatise ever published 
 on killing red deer with the rifle. Nevertheless, he 
 did so with a degree of trepidation which seldom 
 interferes with the scribbling of smaller men. He 
 remembered how, thirty years before, Scott had slated 
 Colonel Thornton in the Edinburgh Review 
 
 ' " Shall a poaching, hunting, or hawking squire presume to 
 trespass on the fields of literature ? " These words, or others 
 of similar import, I remember to have encountered in one 
 of our distinguished reviews. They ring still in my ears, 
 and fill me with apprehension as it is ; but they would alarm 
 me much more if I had attempted to put my foot within the 
 sacred enclosures alluded to ... Literature 1 Heaven help 
 us ! far from it : I have no such presumption : I have 
 merely attempted to describe a very interesting pursuit as 
 nearly as possible in the style and spirit in which I have 
 seen it carried out.' 
 
 In spite of this disclaimer, Scrope, who was a well- 
 educated, widely-read traveller, must have had some 
 suspicion that he was producing something better than 
 the stuff which passed for sporting literature during 
 the first half of this century. What Apperley, writing 
 as ' Nhnrod,' had done for fox-hunting, Scrope did, and 
 may have intended to do, for deer-stalking and salmon- 
 fishing. Like Nimrod, he always had a quotation from 
 the classics ready; this was the recognised elegancy of an 
 age when the House of Commons would listen patiently 
 to lengthy extracts from the ^Eneid. Field sports had 
 long been the monopoly of hard-drinking squires and
 
 10 WILLIAM SCROPE 
 
 lairds ; Scrope's fastidious taste had often been wounded 
 by the habits of his associates ; and it is amusing to see 
 how tenderly he deals with topers, and how cautiously 
 he attempts to limit the deer-stalkers' libations and 
 prescribe a regimen for the forest 
 
 ' " O'Doherty, be merciful ; Christopher, put down thy 
 bristles ; for, lo, I will not limit him, as Sir Humphrey does 
 his fisherman, to the philosopher's half-pint of claret. . . . 
 The best part of a bottle of champagne may be allowed at 
 dinner ; this is not only venial, but salutary. A few 
 tumblers of brandy and soda-water are greatly to be com- 
 mended, for they are cooling. Whisky cannot reasonably 
 be objected to, for it is an absolute necessary, and does not 
 come under the name of intemperance, but rather, as Dogberry 
 says, or ought to say, ' it comes by nature ! ' Ginger-beer 
 I hold to be a dropsical, insufficient, and unmanly beverage ; 
 I pray you avoid it ; and as for your magnums and pottle- 
 deep potations, why, really, at this season of the year, as 
 Captain Bobadil says, 'We cannot extend thus far.'" : 
 
 Only to peruse such a prescription makes degenerate 
 modern temples throb. Fancy taking the hill to any 
 purpose the morning after a bottle of champagne and 
 ' a few tumblers ' of brandy and soda-water ; followed by 
 whisky ! 
 
 Once get him upon the heather, and Scrope proves 
 a delightful companion. You breathe the very air 
 of the mountain ; you hear the bleat of the hill sheep, 
 the hum of the heather flies, the roar of the autumn 
 stag. You swelter in the blazing sun on the lee side of 
 the ascent ; you cower away from the wet blast under 
 the boulder-strewn crest; you are led through all the
 
 JANUARY 11 
 
 breathless vicissitudes of the stalk to the moment of 
 triumph or of hopeless chagrin ; yet your guide is 
 never so entirely absorbed in the sport as to forget 
 the story which gives historic dignity to crag and 
 waste, to glen and moor. There is a great deal in The 
 Art of Deer-stalking besides the stalking of deer, and 
 the book was nobly illustrated by its author, and by 
 Edwin, Charles, and Thomas Landseer. 
 
 Excellent, however, as was Scrope's first essay in 
 letters, his second and last was better. There was 
 not one salmon-fisher in his day for fifty there are in 
 our own ; there were, on the other hand, many more 
 salmon, so there is no lack of sport to be described. 
 Scrope had cast angle in many waters, but in Days 
 and Nights he recounted only his experience on the 
 Tweed; what land so fascinating as Tweedside for a 
 mind like his ? He rented the Pavilion near Melrose 
 for many years, and naturally grew into friendship 
 with ' The Shirra',' of whom his pages are full of 
 reminiscence. Nor the Shirra' alone, but Tom Purdie, 
 Scott's immortal henchman, is brought before us as he 
 lived ; we hear his own quaint phrases, even as Scrope 
 heard them in far-off summer days. Magni nominis 
 uTribra sons have failed the line of Abbotsford, but 
 still the stem of Purdie flourishes, inseparable from 
 Craigover, the Webbs, Bloody Breeks, and other famous 
 salmon casts where Scrope found his delight 
 
 ' Ercildoune and Cowdenknowes, 
 
 Where Homes had ance commanding, 
 And Drygrange, with its milk-white ewes, 
 'Twixt Tweed and Leader standing.
 
 12 WILLIAM SCEOPE 
 
 The bird that flies through Eedpath trees 
 
 And Gladwood banks each morrow 
 May chant and sing sweet Leader Haugh 
 
 And bonny howms o' Yarrow.' 
 
 In scenes like these a fisherman like Scrope, with an 
 eye for landscape and an ear for legend, might well seek 
 his pleasure, but not till he had companied with Scott 
 could their spirit thoroughly enter into him. He 
 confesses as much in sentences more homely, but not 
 less tender, less passionate but not less faithful than 
 the verse in which Moschus wailed for his lost 
 Bion : 
 
 ' My first visit to the Tweed was before the Minstrel of 
 the North had sung. . . . The scenery, therefore, at that 
 time, unassisted by story, lost its chief interest ; yet was it 
 all lovely in its native charm. Since that time I have seen 
 the cottage of Abbotsford, with its rustic porch, lying peace- 
 fully on the haugh between the lone hills. ... I have seen 
 that cottage converted into a picturesque mansion, with 
 every luxury and comfort attached to it, and have partaken 
 of its hospitality; the unproductive hills I have viewed 
 covered with thriving plantations, and the whole aspect of 
 the country civilised. But amidst all these revolutions, I 
 have never perceived any change in the mind of him who 
 made them. . . . There he dwelt in the hearts of the people, 
 diffusing life and happiness around him; he made a home 
 beside the border river, in a country and a nation that have 
 derived benefit from his presence and consequence from his 
 genius. From his chambers he looked out upon the grey 
 ruins of the abbey, and the sun which set in splendour 
 behind the Eildon Hills. Like that sun, his course has been 
 run; and though disastrous clouds came across him in his 
 career, he went down in unfading glory . . . Abbotsford,
 
 JANUARY 13 
 
 Mertotin, Chiefswood, Huntley Burn, Allerley ! when shall 
 I forget you 1 ' 
 
 Then, for a character sketch, what could beat ' Tom 
 Purdie's muckle fish'? True, it is a dark deed that 
 is related, one that every legitimate sportsman is bound 
 to reprobate ; for these were the old, wicked days when 
 leistering was lawful, and the muckle fish was an 
 enormous kipper in Caberston Throat ' mair like a 
 red stirk than aught else ' so huge that Tom believed 
 it was the Devil himself tempting him to break the 
 Sabbath. He had broken it, indeed, by spying the 
 water instead of going to Traquair Kirk ; but he had 
 the grace to wait till midnight, till he roused the ' nout- 
 herd callant ' to go in quest of the mighty kipper. How 
 they found it, how Tom struck it, and how the fourteen- 
 pound leister ' stottit off his back as if he had been a 
 bag o' wool,' must be read in the original taken down 
 from Tom's lips. Tom rarely missed his aim, and at 
 first he felt convinced that he had had Satan to deal 
 with. A few minutes' reflection, and, his blood being 
 up, he argued himself and Sandy into the belief that 
 the Devil could never have shown himself in broad 
 daylight on the Sabbath. It must be a fish after all ; 
 they renewed the assault; and, after a fearful tussle, 
 secured their quarry, which was so big that ' as I waded 
 the water wi' him, leadin' Sandie by the hand, his neb 
 was above my head, an' his tail plash'd in the water 
 on my heels.'
 
 14 SCIENCE IN WANT OF A COMMON LANGUAGE 
 
 III 
 
 Mr. Seager's Natural History in Shakespeare's Time 
 science in is an amusing compilation, affording useful 
 common* insight into the methods of pre-scientific 
 language research. No statement too dogmatic, no 
 falsehood too flagrant, no explanation too preposterous, 
 to be presented and accepted in those days as revela- 
 tions of natural phenomena. Once a lie got into print 
 (and Elizabethan publishers were . by no means 
 squeamish about what passed through their hands) it 
 took centuries to overtake it ; one writer after another 
 copied it ; and any one who should express any doubts 
 as to the breeding of barnacle geese from shellfish or 
 the influence of the phases of the moon on the climate 
 of Great Britain (as distinguished from the rest of the 
 globe) was looked upon as a troublesome fellow 
 incapable of sound philosophy. Writers on natural 
 science seem to have been afraid of showing imperfect 
 erudition, unless they began by faking up all the 
 rubbish that had found utterance by their predecessors. 
 
 At the present day danger of another kind besets 
 the diffusion of knowledge. There is such a multitude 
 of patient systematic workers and observers in every 
 quarter of the globe, such an abundance of scientific 
 literature in almost every civilised language, that it is 
 difficult for those who are not active members of 
 learned societies to keep abreast of the discoveries 
 which reward the student in every department. Even 
 the foremost and most fruitful workers are conscious
 
 JANUARY 15 
 
 of this embarrassment of information. It is some 
 years since I listened with sympathy to Dr. Dorn 
 in his laboratory at Naples, confessing with a sigh 
 that he was outpaced ; that it would take six heads to 
 deal with the advance of knowledge, even in his special 
 branch marine biology. He lamented that Latin had 
 been abandoned as the language of science common to 
 all nations. At present the proceedings of learned 
 societies are published in so many languages that it 
 is impossible for one man to overtake what is important 
 in each. 
 
 IV 
 
 One of the phenomena most familiar to the field 
 
 naturalist, which has hitherto baffled under- 
 Protective 
 
 standing, seems to have received mterpreta- colora- 
 tion by a well-known American ornithologist, 
 Mr. Thayer. The design of protective coloration in 
 bird and beast is often sufficiently obvious. Even the 
 stripes of the tiger and the spots of the leopard have 
 been recognised by hunters as harmonising completely 
 with their surroundings in brilliant sunshine, while our 
 own partridge, ptarmigan, hare, and other creatures are 
 conveniently assimilated in hue to that of their usual 
 haunts. But nobody hitherto has hit upon the reason 
 why the underparts of terrestrial birds and mammals 
 are so often white or very light coloured. 
 
 That this is part of a scheme of protective coloration 
 is perhaps the last idea that would occur to most 
 people. It would be much easier to account for it
 
 16 PROTECTIVE COLORATION 
 
 on the grounds of economical design, that the colouring 
 pigment should not be supplied where protective 
 colour was of no use. Mr. Thayer attempts to prove 
 by some simple experiments that the whiteness of 
 breasts and bellies in these animals has a far deeper 
 significance. At a meeting of the American Ornitho- 
 logists' Union at Cambridge, Mass., on November 10th, 
 1897, he took three sweet potatoes, smeared with a 
 sticky material, and fixed them horizontally on a wire 
 stretched a few inches above a dusty road. Dust from 
 the road was then sprinkled over them, so that they 
 harmonised closely with the background, and the 
 undersides of the two end ones were painted pure 
 white, the paint being blended gradually into the 
 brown on the sides. Viewed at a distance of several 
 yards, the painted potatoes disappeared from, sight, 
 while the unpainted one in the middle was plainly 
 visible in strong relief, appearing many shades darker 
 than the road, which it had been prepared to match. 
 Mr. Thayer next explained that the white paint on the 
 undersides of the potatoes, corresponding to the white 
 underparts of terrestrial birds and mammals, was 
 essential to concealment, though, when viewed close, 
 it made them more conspicuous. The effect of it was 
 to neutralise the shadow, which, unless counteracted 
 in this way, renders the whole object far darker and 
 more conspicuous than it would be if laid close to the 
 ground. To prove this, he proceeded to paint with 
 white the underside of the middle potato, whereupon 
 it immediately disappeared from view of the spectators.
 
 JANUARY 17 
 
 The experiment was afterwards tried on a green lawn. 
 Of two potatoes painted to match the grass, one was 
 painted white on the underside. This one became 
 practically indistinguishable at a little distance, while 
 the other one, all green, was plainly seen, and appeared 
 much darker than the lawn. 
 
 This experiment, which anybody may try for himself, 
 is remarkable, not only for its simplicity, but because 
 of its suggestiveness. That hares, deer, partridges, and 
 female water-birds should be closely assimilated to the 
 background of their breeding haunts is a striking 
 instance of provision for the protection of the species ; 
 but people are apt to view it vaguely as the result of 
 an automatic process such as causes all the book-backs 
 in a venerable library to assume a generally uniform 
 complexion. Here, in the whiteness of the underparts, 
 we seem to touch on evidence of a deeper and more 
 deliberate design; the stratagem of an external in- 
 tellect to neutralise the danger arising from the law 
 of light and shade. To hold that the prevalence of 
 white underparts had an accidental origin seems to 
 strain to the utmost the doctrine of evolution and 
 survival of the best protected ; although, on the other 
 hand, it may be claimed as additional evidence in 
 favour of that doctrine. It will be observed, by the by, 
 that white waistcoats have never come into favour 
 among grouse. On the contrary, living as they do 
 among dark heather and darker peat, they have 
 nothing to fear from their own shadows. 
 
 Talking of protective coloration reminds one of the
 
 18 A NEW EAGLE 
 
 singular exception to its adoption among the females 
 of British Anatidcv. In the sheldrake, perhaps the 
 most conspicuously coloured of all our ducks, there is 
 very little difference in the plumage of male and female. 
 Each wears a splendid livery of chestnut, black, and 
 bottle-green on a ground of swan-like white, with 
 scarlet bills and legs. Such a garb is wholly unsuitable 
 for the privy purposes of incubation above ground, so 
 the female sheldrake creeps into rabbit burrows, lays 
 her eggs in them far beyond human arm's length, and 
 thus gratifies at once the two strongest impulses in the 
 feminine mind the maternal instinct and the love of 
 finery. It is not easy to decide whether subterranean 
 nidification was resorted to because of the brilliant 
 plumage, or whether the female sheldrake, unlike other 
 ducks, earned the privilege of wearing fine feathers in 
 consideration of laying her eggs out of sight. No such 
 reward has been bestowed on the sand-martin, which, 
 although incubating persistently underground, remains 
 the dingiest of all the Hirundinidce. This little bird 
 (Cotile riparia) is the earliest of its tribe to arrive, and 
 often attains a spurious fame in local prints by being 
 heralded as the ' first swallow.' 
 
 V 
 
 The crown of the collector's ambition is reached 
 
 Anew when he adds a new species to the list of 
 
 Eagle vertebrates. Each year renders this crown 
 
 more difficult to attain ; for the forests and floods, the
 
 JANUARY 19 
 
 mountains and plains of the habitable parts of the earth 
 have been pretty completely ransacked by this time. 
 Of invertebrate creatures the catalogue is still capable 
 of indefinite expansion; but of birds, beasts, reptiles, 
 and fish there can remain no more than a very small 
 minority to be revealed. The greater glory then is due 
 to Mr. Whitehead in his discovery (reported in 1898) of 
 the great forest eagle of the Philippine Islands (Pithe- 
 cophaga Jeffryi). That this magnificent bird, of which 
 the only specimen obtained weighed nearly twenty 
 pounds, should have escaped hitherto the vigilance of 
 wandering naturalists, is owing to the impenetrable 
 nature of its haunts, which are the dense forests of the 
 island of Samar, where many of the trees are upwards 
 of two hundred and forty feet in height. Day after day 
 Mr. Whitehead watched these mighty eagles circling 
 far out of shot near his camp, till at last one of his 
 collectors, having marked a male bird alighting on a 
 lofty tree, stalked it and succeeded in lodging a single 
 buckshot in the neck. Even then the booty was far 
 from being secured, for the tremendous talons of the 
 dead bird still clung to the branch; but one of the 
 natives climbed the tree and released them. The skin 
 now in the British Museum, shows an aquiline character 
 of the highest type. The head is adorned with a shaggy 
 crest ; the skull is larger even than that of the harpy, 
 which seems to be the nearest allied species ; while the 
 bill is exceedingly powerful and equalled in depth by 
 that of only one bird of prey hitherto known Pallas's 
 sea-eagle. Its favourite prey consists of green monkeys,
 
 20 THE SNOWDROP 
 
 though it does not disdain to vary its diet by occasional 
 raids on the poultry of the villagers. 
 
 VI 
 
 There is no more constant timekeeper than the snow- 
 The snow- drop. It seems constitutionally insensible of 
 drop temperature; for, although hard frost may 
 
 retard the blossoms by making the ground like iron, 
 through which they cannot be thrust, they make their 
 appearance simultaneously with a thaw. On the other 
 hand, this curious little plant will not respond to 
 abnormal warmth, natural or applied. You may 
 coddle the bulbs in pots, and put them in a warm 
 frame with crocus, hyacinth, narcissus, and lily of the 
 valley, these last will reward you by anticipating their 
 natural season by many weeks. Not so the snowdrop; 
 unless the ground outside be really frost-bound, the 
 protected flowers will keep exact pace with those in 
 the lawn turf. The present winter (1897-8) has been 
 unusually mild, yet the first snowdrops have appeared 
 just at the usual time between Christmas and the New 
 Year. That is their constant date in the mild west 
 near the sea. On the east coast and in the London 
 district, snowdrops will not be seen till a full month 
 later. 
 
 Botanists do not admit the snowdrop as a true native 
 of Britain. From the Caucasus to Central Germany, 
 they say, is its legitimate range ; but there is no pretty 
 weed which has established itself more firmly as a 
 British colonist, in those districts, at least, where soil
 
 JANUARY 21 
 
 and climate suit it. In the Scilly Isles, strange to 
 say, where bulbous plants are cultivated to produce 
 hundreds of tons of early blossom, the snowdrop will 
 scarcely live ; while four hundred miles to the north, 
 on the misty Atlantic seaboard, it spreads from garden 
 to lawn, from lawn to woodland, and sheets the banks 
 with mimic snow. 
 
 VII 
 
 ' When the gorse is out of bloom, kissing will go out 
 of fashion,' is the conceit of amorous English Gorse ^^ 
 rustics. In Scotland, where, as everybody Gromwe11 
 knows, kissing was not practised until the Union, the 
 perpetual flowering of the gorse has given rise to the 
 distich 
 
 ' When the whin gangs out o' bloom, 
 Will be the end o' Em'brugh toun.' 
 
 Now this welcome property of the gorse has been 
 attained by a floral subterfuge harmless indeed, but 
 distinctly insincere. It is not known to everybody 
 that there are two kinds of gorse equally distributed 
 over Britain, very like each other, so much so that they 
 are regarded by some botanists merely as varieties of 
 the same species. But the difference is invariable be- 
 tween Ulex europceus, the gorse dear to foxhunters, 
 and Ulex nanus, a dwarfer shrub, with spines of deeper 
 green and flowers of ruddier gold. Both kinds, especi- 
 ally the last-named, have a perpetual flowering tendency ; 
 but if Ulex nanus were not present to take up the
 
 22 FROSTED HEATHER 
 
 running in autumn and winter, there would be a dis- 
 tinct risk of the calamities indicated respectively in 
 the English and Scots proverbs. There is only one 
 hardy plant known to me which never fails to bear 
 flowers, and lovely ones, on every day in the year. 
 It is one of the borage family, the same to which we 
 owe our forget-me-nots, and goes by the name of the 
 blue gromwell (Lithospermum prostratum). In its 
 native southern Europe it flowers but once a year, 
 under the influence of spring moisture; but in our 
 dripping climate it is always growing, and having the 
 almost unique constitution to enable it to dispense 
 with rest, its dark evergreen sprays are always studded 
 with charming stars of deep azure. It is a low shrub, 
 of the stature of common heather, but more spreading, 
 and relishes a slightly elevated mound set with lumps 
 of stone to sprawl over. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Mr. Percy Grimshaw, in an interesting communication 
 Frosted to a recent number of Annals of Scottish 
 Heather Natural History, has thrown a new light on 
 what is too well known to the owners of moors as 
 ' frosted heather.' This phenomenon, with which some 
 observers have connected visitations of grouse disease, 
 does not owe its origin, it appears, to frost, but is the 
 result of the ravages of a small beetle (Lochmcea sutur- 
 alis) which time to time increases to prodigious 
 swarms. This insect only measures five millimetres in 
 length (about one-fifth of an inch), and attacks the
 
 JANUARY 23 
 
 roots of the heather, which withers away and looks as 
 if it has been seared by frost. No remedy can be sug- 
 gested, for this creature waxes and wanes without any 
 apparent cause. All that we have gained is the know- 
 ledge that if ' frosted heather ' is the cause of grouse 
 disease, temperature has nothing to do with it. The 
 idea which experience encourages is that grouse disease 
 puts in an appearance in places where abnormal repro- 
 duction has raised the stock above the natural limit, 
 whence it may spread by infection to other and less 
 densely populated moors. Five or six years ago, when 
 the vole plague was at its height in the Scottish 
 lowlands, and sheep farmers were at their wits' ends 
 because of their ruined pastures, when every hillside 
 from Ettrick to Carsphairn was alive with the vermin, 
 suddenly the creatures began to rot off in thousands, 
 until the vole population shrank to normal and harm- 
 less proportions. So it is with grouse. In this district, 
 Galloway, there remain many patches of one hundred 
 to one thousand acres of moor and mossland, isolated 
 among wide tracts of arable land. Each of these patches 
 produces annually a few broods of grouse, but these never 
 exceed the power of the ground to sustain them in health, 
 and such a thing as a diseased bird has never been seen. 
 Probably the heather beetle is subject to a similar 
 natural and automatic check. Always present in the 
 soil, some incalculable combination of favourable cir- 
 cumstances causes it to multiply abnormally, until 
 Nature decrees, ' Enough ! too much ! ' and the swarms 
 die off. It is pretty clear that gamekeepers may dis-
 
 24 THE BADGER 
 
 miss 'frosted heather' from their long catalogue of 
 causes of grouse disease. 
 
 IX 
 
 Mr. Pease has done good service to British Zoology in 
 Pke drawing attention to one of our most in- 
 
 Badger teresting wild animals (though not the largest, 
 as he describes it, for the red deer and the roe excel 
 the badger in stature and weight). Perhaps his little 
 treatise x has come in time to postpone the necessity for 
 an epitaph on the last British brock; and it may be 
 hoped that warm advocacy by one well known as a 
 keen sportsman may redeem the race from unmerited 
 obloquy, rescue it from the opprobrium which con- 
 signed it to the category of vermin, and restore it to its 
 ancient position among beasts of venery. 
 It is rough, hard work, badger-hunting. 
 
 'I have, with my brother, Mr. J. A. Pease, started at 7.30 
 A.M. from home, worked a summer day with a slight refresh- 
 ment at one, handled pick and shovel and spade, fought the 
 terriers, and gone on through the afternoon, evening, and a 
 black, wet night, without even a drop of water to slake our 
 parched throats, deserted by all but one faithful workman, 
 and on till the grey dawn of another day. ... At five 
 o'clock we secured a splendid pair of badgers, which we 
 bore home on our aching backs, followed by our gallant 
 little team of draggled and dirty terriers.' 
 
 The disposal of the game when taken is a problem. 
 Mr. Pease finds that badgers make sympathetic pets, 
 
 1 The Badger, a monograph, by Alfred E. Pease, M.F., London. 
 Lawrence and Bullen, Ld. 1898.
 
 JANUARY 25 
 
 but there must be limits to accommodation for them. 
 They are not worth killing, unless you have a fancy for 
 badger hams reputed a delicacy in Ireland or enter 
 into a contract to supply a shaving-brush maker. But 
 it is good to hunt them, says Mr. Pease, not only 
 because it is stirring, invigorating sport, which takes 
 you to the woodland early and late, but also because 
 hunting is the only thing that will preserve a fine 
 animal from extinction. Paradox this, as some may 
 think, but the author quotes the parallel of fox-hunting. 
 No foxhounds, no foxes; it is only fair hunting that 
 can protect the badger from the fate which almost 
 inevitably awaits him now when he is caught that of 
 being taken to a town to be brutally and repeatedly 
 baited. 
 
 It is good to hear Mr. Pease dilate, with all a York- 
 shireman's zeal and science, on the points and qualities 
 of a good terrier 
 
 ' What thousands of little curs there are called terriers 
 and fox-terriers that will no more go down a fox-earth than 
 go up a chimney ! How many thousands of the best of 
 these, however finely shaped for the show-bench, that have 
 no more idea of their profession and the duties for which 
 Nature made them, and from which they derive their name, 
 than the man in the moon.' 
 
 How few there are that deserve the encomium pro- 
 nounced, in exquisite dialect, by the old shoemaker on 
 one of the author's dogs which had thrown six big 
 rats over her shoulder in half as many seconds : ' Si' 
 the, lads ! Worry's t'yan fer pickin' t'wick out on 'em '
 
 26 THE BADGER 
 
 which, being interpreted into Mercian speech, would 
 run : ' Look ye, lads ! Worry's the one to pick the life 
 out of 'em.' 
 
 Well, leaving Mr. Pease to settle with the Humani- 
 tarian League the ethics of badger-hunting, a word of 
 praise must be given to his notes on the habits and 
 food of an animal hitherto obscurely understood. A 
 keen preserver of both game and foxes, he acquits the 
 badger of any serious detriment to the first, though it 
 cannot resist a nest of young rabbits, to which it 
 delights to dig down, and proves that the crime of 
 crunching the heads of fox cubs attributed to the 
 badger is really the work of a depraved old dog fox. 
 Mr. Pease discredits Mr. Vyner's statement in Notitia 
 Venatica about the extraordinary period of gestation in 
 badgers, a statement only made on hearsay. His own 
 observations, which are worth any amount of theory 
 and second-hand information, tend to fixing nine 
 weeks, instead of twelve months, as the period of 
 pregnancy. 
 
 This brings me to the only fault I have to find with 
 Mr. Pease the somewhat unworthy slights he puts on 
 men of science. Here is one instance : 
 
 ' A man who is not able to tell you everything, as these 
 learned men do, about every living creature may from a 
 country life and experience be able to correct some errors.' 
 
 Precisely ; and warmly will men of science welcome 
 the observations of Mr. Pease, who has made good use 
 of opportunities denied to them, and watched badgers
 
 JANUARY 27 
 
 at play on summer nights, or at work dragging out the 
 old bedding and bringing in new to their earths. The 
 field naturalist and the student of the museum and 
 dissecting-room are inseparable allies ; their work is 
 mutual, though distinct, and they ought not to show 
 each other up. How could Mr. Pease tell us, as he 
 does, that the badger is the nearest approach to a bear 
 that England can boast, were it not for the labours of 
 such men as Button, to whom his reference is something 
 short of generous. Perhaps, however, the expressions 
 used by Mr. Pease convey more than he intended. All 
 lovers of country life owe him much gratitude for an 
 excellent little work. 
 
 The claim of sportsmen to be considered merciful must 
 ever remain an absurd paradox in the eyes 
 
 J Mercy in 
 
 of those unversed in woodcraft. All killing 
 
 is cruel, runs their syllogism ; the object of 
 sport and sportsmen is killing; therefore sport and 
 sportsmen are cruel. If the major premise were fault- 
 less, I should certainly not have a word to say in 
 defence of sport, least of all in defence of shooting, 
 which involves more killing than any other field 
 sport, for of all hateful things there is none so loath- 
 some as cruelty. But killing and cruelty are not 
 synonymous, else the whole scheme of animated nature 
 stands condemned. What the shooter does is to class 
 certain wild animals useful for food as 'game'; to 
 encourage their multiplication and protect them from
 
 28 MERCY IN FIELD SPORTS 
 
 molestation by destroying other wild animals which 
 prey upon them, and by formulating regulations for 
 killing them at specified seasons. He says, in effect : 
 ' You are beautiful or interesting animals, useful to me 
 for food, clothing, or other purposes ; it is the inexor- 
 able law of nature that you should be killed, but I will 
 take the killing of you into my own hands. I will 
 undertake that you undergo no unnecessary suffering, 
 and, above all, that you are secured from injury during 
 the sacred season of reproduction.' 
 
 This is the principle that lies at the base of the 
 ethics of field sports, and it is the sedulous observance 
 of this that gives the sportsman a just claim to be 
 considered merciful. It is apart from, and much higher 
 than, the mere manner of killing prescribed by the code 
 of sport, for the welfare of an animal is not affected by 
 the manner of its sudden death. It is held unsports- 
 manlike, indeed, to shoot game birds on the ground or 
 on a tree, but that is from consideration for the sports- 
 man, to whose advantage it is to practise dexterity of 
 hand and eye. So the paradox is only apparent to 
 those who do not understand the nature of sport, and 
 the humane consideration which inspires the true 
 sportsman, both for the objects of the chase and for 
 certain animals employed in it. 
 
 Take, for example, the ancient sport of falconry. 
 The peregrine preys on grouse and partridges, and, but 
 for the intervention of man, would soon reduce them 
 to very small numbers. Man wants the game for 
 food ; protects the birds from indiscriminate slaughter
 
 JANUARY 29 
 
 by their natural foes ; trains some of these foes to take 
 some of the game at prescribed seasons, and enjoys a 
 health-giving pastime besides. Grouse and partridges 
 are no losers under this arrangement. The same man 
 who takes delight in tearing the rocketers out of the 
 skies, or artistically dropping scores of driven grouse 
 round his box, will endure tortures on seeing a 
 retriever unmercifully beaten for a blunder, and feel 
 his heart bleed for the sufferings of a cab-horse with 
 navicular disease. Nor will he be content merely to 
 give sympathy, however sincere. He will be foremost 
 in those efforts which, happily, are characteristic of 
 our civilisation for protecting beast and bird from 
 unnecessary suffering or wilful abuse. It is not in the 
 sportsman's stable that cruelly tight-bearing reins are 
 permitted, nor in his study that you need look for a 
 lark imprisoned in a tiny cage. One can best realise 
 the effect of sport on the welfare of wild animals by 
 imagining what would have been the present state 
 of things had the Game Laws been abolished, as many 
 earnest and well-meaning persons think they ought to 
 be, and shooting put an end to as a pastime. Game 
 would have ceased to exist, except, perhaps, in the 
 walled parks of a few very rich men. Grouse, the only 
 exclusively British species of bird, don't frequent walled 
 parks, and would have been wiped off the face of the 
 earth; we should be talking of them with the same 
 melancholy interest that invests the dodo and the 
 great auk. 
 
 So much from the naturalist's point of view, but the
 
 30 MERCY IN FIELD SPORTS 
 
 economic point is even more important. A vast supply 
 of choice food would have been lost. Careful preserva- 
 tion and, in the case of pheasants, hand-rearing 
 have resulted in an enormous increase in the winged 
 game of this country, the bulk of which finds its way 
 into the market, greatly to the advantage of the public 
 in general and poulterers in particular. 
 
 ' Oh, but/ say certain moralists, ' how degrading it is 
 to rear birds for the mere purpose of shooting them 
 down ! ' 
 
 Why, pray? Could the birds be consulted, they 
 would probably prefer a short life and a merry one 
 while it lasts to no life at all. And as for degrada- 
 tion, how many mutton chops do your moralists con- 
 sume in the course of the year ? A large number, I 
 am glad to think, thanks to the skill and industry of 
 farmers, who produce large numbers of sheep. The 
 moralists are not heard to reflect on the degradation of 
 farmers and butchers. 
 
 The result of shooting as a field sport has been to 
 retain in this country a number of beautiful and useful 
 birds and beasts which would have been utterly 
 destroyed unless means had been taken to protect 
 them. It has been necessary, in doing so, to kill down 
 other animals not less beautiful, such as martens, 
 polecats, stoats, peregrine falcons, hobbies, harriers, and 
 sparrowhawks. It must be confessed also that some 
 innocent species have been confounded with the guilty. 
 Merlins, kestrels, and owls do very little harm and a 
 great deal of good. Even weasels suffer in reputation
 
 JANUAKY 31 
 
 from their likeness to stoats, and, indeed, they are not 
 to be trusted with young leverets. But their chief diet 
 consists of mice, rats, and young rabbits. The intelli- 
 gent interest in wild things which the pursuit of game 
 wakens in so many minds may be trusted to make the 
 regulations of game-preserving more discriminating in 
 the future than it has been in the past. The harmless 
 night-jar will no longer pay the penalty of his hawk- 
 like mien, for it is well understood what useful work he 
 does in keeping down moths and cockchafers. Men are 
 beginning to take delight in encouraging and studying, 
 rather than slaying, some of our visitors which have 
 become rare the bittern, the ruff and reeve, and some 
 of the scarcer waterfowl ; and we look chiefly to sports- 
 men to set the fashion. It still is too much the way 
 for one who has shot a strange and beautiful animal to 
 record it boastfully in the local press. The collector 
 is busy at his nefarious trade, and every noodle who 
 wants to pose as an ornithologist writes to the local 
 press to report his senseless outrages on feathered 
 visitors. News comes (1898) of the slaughter of wax- 
 wings (Ampelis garrulus), from Banff (two), Elgin 
 (one), and Cairngorm (two) : evidently a small party, 
 just landed in the inhospitable north-east, has received 
 the usual 'Highland welcome.' It is in the power of 
 sportsmen to discourage this kind of thing, and people 
 will soon learn to be ashamed of such treatment of 
 wanderers if the right example is set them.
 
 XI 
 
 ON one of the preternaturally warm days of the pass- 
 winter m g winter (1897-8) I witnessed a very pretty 
 and unusual sight. Three golden- eyes, two 
 full-plumaged drakes, and a duck were performing some 
 extraordinary antics on the smooth surface of the lake. 
 The duck paddled rapidly from one to another of her 
 courtiers, holding her head low along the water, as if 
 imploring them not to fight. The drakes puffed them- 
 selves out like miniature swans, till they were hardly 
 to be recognised as the sleek, shy creatures they gener- 
 ally are, swam towards each other repeatedly, as if 
 about to engage furiously, and then, at the last moment, 
 stopped short, and each alternately threw back his head 
 till the back of the skull rested among the scapular 
 feathers, the bill pointing perpendicularly upwards. It 
 was a very pretty spectacle; the glossy black of the 
 plumage almost disappeared in the puffed-out white 
 feathers. Often and often as I have watched these 
 birds, I never before saw them behave in like manner. 
 Usually their demeanour errs on the side of cominon- 
 
 82
 
 FEBEUAKY 33 
 
 place diving as if their lives depended upon it (as 
 indeed they do), perpetually scratching their heads 
 under the irritation of parasites, from which all aquatic 
 birds suffer so much, and evincing marked aver- 
 sion to being spied. On this occasion they took no 
 notice of me as I stood in full view upon the lake 
 shore. 
 
 It looked like courtship : all the elements were there 
 the lady and the rivals but at most it can only 
 have been a rehearsal ; harmless flirtation is unknown 
 among birds ; when they begin they mean business ; the 
 suitor is terribly in earnest, the lady becoming coy but 
 quite wide awake, with practical views about a suitable 
 establishment ; but the golden-eye is a late nester, and 
 has never been known to breed in this country. It 
 migrates in spring to northern latitudes, where the 
 female lays her eggs generally in a hollow tree. The 
 scene described above took place more than three 
 months before these birds ought to contemplate matri- 
 mony. I should greatly like to ask these gallants 
 whether their intentions were strictly honourable. 
 
 Since this little episode we have had experience of a 
 fierce little winter a sharper after-bite than usual 
 more, however, in the way of blizzard than of intense 
 frost. Very beautiful some of these days were, as I 
 witnessed them, in Helmsdale, which is the name the 
 Norse invaders of the tenth century gave to that fine 
 valley which the original Gael of Sutherland called 
 Strath Ullie. It was not intensely cold, for the dale 
 retains most of its primeval birch wood, greatly appre- 
 c
 
 34 WINTER NOTES 
 
 ciated by blackgame. The old cocks made light of the 
 storm which roared over the heights and drove blinding 
 snow-showers down the strath; they knew the rough 
 weather could not last; and when the sun shone out 
 between the gusts, they began crooning among the birch 
 boughs, alighting at times on the snowclad ground to 
 strut and swagger after their manner when spring draws 
 nigh. But a much more trustworthy harbinger of 
 better things appeared in the strath on one of the 
 bitterest days at the close of February a solitary 
 peewit, to be joined next day by several companions. 
 Sutherland lies to the north of the winter haunts of 
 the lapwing ; the appearance of this bird there marks 
 the approach, as the cuckoo in Cambridgeshire does 
 the presence, of spring. Several parties of northward- 
 bound chaffinches and other small birds also ap- 
 peared, having set out, in spite of the temporary wintry 
 aspect of things, on their annual journey to far 
 Scandinavia. 
 
 Season after season, day after day, the close observer 
 of nature will witness the same incidents, the same 
 traits, repeated by wild creatures ; from time to 
 time he will be rewarded by something novel. During 
 the recent bitter after- Yule I happened to notice 
 one such occurrence. Everybody knows how the hen 
 birds of many species will pretend to be cripples in 
 order to lead away an intruder from their young. It 
 is a touching, but threadbare, and therefore not very 
 effective device, but it is always pretty to see the 
 imposture well acted. I was crossing a small flat of
 
 FEBRUARY 35 
 
 heather to fish a certain salmon pool in the Helms- 
 dale, when a hen grouse fluttered out at my feet, and 
 scrambled away with a deplorably crippled gait. ' A 
 wounded bird/ I remarked to my gillie, well knowing 
 there could be no brood about in February. No sooner 
 were the words spoken than my boot almost went upon 
 an old cock, which flew out of the heather with a brave 
 cackle; immediately the hen pulled herself together, 
 joined her mate, and both were soon out of view in 
 strong flight across the river. This is the first instance 
 ' I have witnessed of a bird incurring personal risk in 
 order to protect its mate. It will be observed that this 
 devotion was shown by the hen ; I am afraid it would 
 never occur to a cock bird to put himself in jeopardy 
 for his spouse's sake. It is true, however, that the 
 whirring rise of a cock pheasant serves as a warning, 
 albeit involuntary, for his wives to lie low in the presence 
 of danger. 
 
 Talking of cock pheasants, there is one of their habits 
 for which it is exceedingly difficult to imagine any good 
 reason namely, that inveterate one of crowing loudly 
 and repeatedly before going to roost, or, rather, after 
 going to roost, and before going to sleep. The black- 
 bird does the same; and besides these two I cannot 
 recall any British bird which indulges in this foolish 
 custom. Foolish it surely is, for it must be of some 
 importance to every animal to sleep securely, and that 
 might be best ensured by not announcing the exact 
 position of the sleeping place to all prowling creatures. 
 At all events, nearly all wild animals go to bed in
 
 36 WINTEK NOTES 
 
 silence, however much clamour they may make on 
 waking. 
 
 To whom, then, is this advertisement addressed by the 
 cock pheasant and the blackbird ? It may be assumed 
 that every note of a bird is intended to convey informa- 
 tion to its fellows on some subject of importance. Even 
 man, most garrulous of all creatures, rarely indulges 
 in soliloquy, and feels much ashamed when detected 
 in so doing. Certainly, it is exceptional to hear a 
 self-respecting human householder bellowing 'Rule 
 Britannia ' or ' I fear no Foe in Shining Armour ' as he 
 takes his bedroom candlestick. But this is just what 
 the cock pheasant and the blackbird do at all seasons. 
 You may hear the wise partridge calling at sundown in 
 August ; but that is to summon her brood to their bed- 
 room. The cock pheasant sets more store on a single 
 barleycorn than on all the broods of all his many wives, 
 and the blackbird chatters as much at nightfall in mid- 
 winter as in May. Dr. Louis Robinson has lately pub- 
 lished some exceedingly interesting and suggestive 
 speculations on the hereditary and acquired habits of 
 wild animals ; but in his volume Wild Traits in Tame 
 Animals 1 this problem is not discussed. He does, 
 indeed, analyse the vocal peculiarities of domestic fowl ; 
 but these are mostly matutinal. The puzzle about the 
 pheasant and blackbird is that they make a noise pre- 
 cisely when prudence, experience, or instinct should 
 have warned them it were wiser to be silent. 
 
 1 Edinburgh : Blackwood and Sons, 1897.
 
 FEBKUARY 37 
 
 XII 
 
 Just one hundred and seventy years ago a certain 
 clergyman, the Rev. James Granger, preached Fowls of 
 a sermon which gave mighty offence to his tbe Air 
 parishioners. Those were days when few people gave 
 serious thought to the sufferings of what we arrogantly 
 call the lower animals ; and it was held to be frivolous, 
 impertinent, and altogether derogatory to the dignity 
 of the Church of England that horses and dogs should 
 be mentioned from the pulpit, and cruelty towards 
 them condemned as contrary to Christian mercy. 
 The most plausible excuse put forward for the parson 
 was that he had gone mad. Howbeit, mad or sane, 
 good Parson Granger afterwards published his sermon 
 in the form of a pamphlet, called An Apology for the 
 Brute Creation, or Abuse of Animals censured, and 
 thus the first note was sounded in that agitation which 
 has resulted in our own day in the presence on the 
 statute book of some of the most excellent laws ever 
 devised. 
 
 Peradventure the thought may enter the mind of 
 a worshipper in some of our fashionable London 
 churches, while the preacher sends a sympathetic thrill 
 through a forest of feather - decked bonnets, that he 
 might venture sometimes to chide the cruelty of fashion, 
 as well as its vanity and selfishness. It seems as if he 
 would be doing his Master's" work as thoroughly 
 were he to suspend eloquent elucidation of theological 
 conundrums, in order to devote a spare half hour
 
 38 FOWLS OF THE AIR 
 
 to imploring mercy for our fellow-creatures the 
 birds. 
 
 There were times, happily now for ever past in this 
 country, when the Church profited by the ignorance 
 of the people. Mourning relatives believed that the 
 souls of their lost ones might be redeemed from pur- 
 gatory by the repetition of so many masses, paid for 
 by the dozen, and that the penalty for their own sins 
 might be liquidated by the purchase of indulgences. 
 The Church knows now that sound knowledge is one 
 of the most trustworthy handmaids of devotion. In 
 this matter, then, of mercy to birds, knowledge is the 
 surest remedy to the present practice ; for there can 
 be nothing more certain than this, that kind-hearted 
 Englishwomen would never consent to deck them- 
 selves with borrowed plumes if they knew the irre- 
 parable mischief that is being wrought by the traffic 
 which supplies them. Should any clergyman feel at 
 a loss for a text from which to preach on this subject, 
 let me respectfully refer him to Professor Newton's 
 admirable Dictionary of Birds; and therein, under 
 the heading ' Extermination,' the following words : 
 
 ' One other cause which threatens the existence of many 
 species of birds, if it has not already produced the exter- 
 mination of some, is the rage for wearing their feathers that 
 now and again seizes civilised women, who take their ideas 
 of dress from interested milliners of both sexes persons 
 who having bought a large stock of what are known as 
 " plumes," proceed to make a profit by declaring them to 
 be in fashion. The tender-hearted ladies who buy them 
 little suspect that some of the large supplies required by
 
 FEBRUARY 39 
 
 the "plume trade" are chiefly got by laying waste the 
 homes of birds that breed gregariously, and that at their 
 very breeding time. ... No havoc in these islands approaches 
 that which is perpetrated in some other countries, especially 
 it is surmised in India, though there now contrary to law ; 
 and the account of the ravages of a party of " bird-plumers " 
 at the breeding stations on the coast of Florida, given by 
 Mr. W. E. D. Scott, who in former years had seen them 
 thronged by a peaceful population, is simply sickening. 
 Did we not know what his feelings were, one might in 
 reading his terrible narrative lose patience with him for 
 not expressing more strongly his detestation of the bar- 
 barities he recounts. But his abstention is doubtless 
 attributable to the fact that his narrative appears in a 
 strictly scientific journal, Avhere sentimental expressions 
 would be out of place. All efforts to awaken the conscience 
 of those who tacitly encourage this detestable devastation, 
 and thereby share in its guilt, have hitherto failed, and, 
 unless laws to stop it be not only passed but enforced, it 
 will go on till it ceases for want of victims, which indeed 
 may happen very shortly. Then milliners will doubtless 
 find that artificial feathers can be made even as artificial 
 flowers now are, and there will be a fine opening for the 
 ingenious inventor. The pity is that he does not begin at 
 once.' 
 
 Now the excuse for making such a lengthy extract 
 as the above is found in the fact that it also is taken 
 from a strictly scientific work. The evil must indeed 
 be crying that wrings from the learned professor such 
 strong expressions of displeasure. 
 
 Of course, when unsanctified man presumes to make 
 observations upon ladies' dress, he must be prepared 
 for the consequences. He will be told that he knows
 
 40 FOWLS OF THE AIR 
 
 nothing about it ; that he had better mind his own 
 business and look after the beam in his own eye. Cer- 
 tainly I am ready to admit that it would not impart 
 the faintest thrill of pleasure either to myself or, I 
 fancy to any one else, except rude little boys in the 
 street, were I to walk about with a humming-bird on 
 one side of my hat, a golden oriole on the other, and a 
 so-called ' osprey ' in the middle. All that I venture to 
 assert is that if ladies knew the realities of the plume 
 trade, they would either discard feathers altogether, or, 
 snapping their fingers at the tyrants of fashion, use 
 ostrich plumes, cut from birds bred for the purpose, 
 and the feathers of those domestic birds, game or wild 
 fowl, which are sold for food. Would that every lady 
 in London would pay a single visit to the East India 
 Docks, and see the millions and millions of bird skins, 
 ransacked from all the fairest places of the earth, to 
 enable fashionable folk, and their imitators, to comply 
 with a senseless decree. It would be an insult to the 
 charms of English women were any one to suggest 
 that their influence can be enhanced by the use of 
 feathers. At the present moment (1897), it seems, 
 feathers, except ostrich plumes and the above- 
 mentioned ' osprey ' (of which more presently), are off, 
 and ribbons are on. Will any man be so foolhardy as 
 to assert that, in consequence, he is less liable to lose 
 his head or his heart? Every hue that ever shone 
 on feathered fowl can be imitated in Coventry ribbons. 
 Would it not be better to provide employment for our 
 own working class in legitimate home industry than
 
 FEBRUARY 41 
 
 to stimulate among South Sea islanders and long- 
 shore loafers the greed of exterminating some of the 
 loveliest creatures on God's earth ? 
 
 Two instances, one of the ingratitude, the other of 
 the cruelty of milliners' fashions, must suffice to illus- 
 trate the urgency of the case. 
 
 A few years ago owls' ' plumes ' were the rage 
 for ladies' hats. Besides innumerable counterfeits, 
 thousands of the genuine article might be seen flaunt- 
 ing in the streets, evidence of the slaughter that had 
 been wrought among one of the most beneficent families 
 of birds. The nature of these plumes might itself have 
 testified to the usefulness of the original owner to the 
 thoughtlessness of the borrower for the structure of 
 an owl's wing coverts is specially adapted to noiseless 
 flight. The importance to the owl of being able to fly 
 without sound lies in his nocturnal habits, and in the 
 keen sense of hearing possessed by his chief prey rats, 
 mice, and voles. The services rendered to farmers, 
 gardeners, millers, and indeed to all rural householders, 
 by a pair of owls is quite beyond calculation. And how 
 do we reward them ? By shooting down this beautiful 
 nocturnal police, savagely tearing out wing-and-tail 
 coverts, fixing them on our feast day hats for a few 
 weeks, and then casting them on the cinder heap. 
 
 To man, we are told, was committed the privilege of 
 devising names for all animated nature. He has, with 
 questionable modesty, reserved for his own species the 
 title of Homo sapiens Man the Wise. Sometimes 
 there is forced upon one the reflection that one of two
 
 42 FOWLS OF THE AIR 
 
 courses is necessary either a new classification and re- 
 naming of the human species, or the abandonment of 
 certain practices which make the old nomenclature in- 
 appropriate. It would be gratifying to our self-respect 
 if, assuming it to be necessary for ladies to display frag- 
 ments of animated nature in their attire, they should 
 adopt the fashion of wearing the carcases of rats, mice, 
 and other furred marauders on their heads. 
 
 So much for Man the Wise ; now for an instance of 
 Man the Merciful. 
 
 Reference has been made to the ' osprey ' plumes so 
 highly prized in bonnet shops. These delicate sprays 
 have quite as much to do with alligators as with 
 ospreys. They are produced by two or three species 
 of heron of fairy-like beauty. To realise their exceed- 
 ing loveliness let the reader turn to the plates of the 
 Great White Heron (Ardea alba) and the little Egret 
 (Ardea garzetta) given in Parts xiv. and xv. of Lord 
 Lilford's Coloured Figures of the Birds of the British 
 Islands. These are most faithful and life-like repre- 
 sentations of these birds in their nuptial dress. At 
 the pairing season long filiform feathers spring from 
 the back and fall, like a bridal veil, over the snowy 
 plumage. That such exquisite creatures should meet 
 with short shrift on the rare occasions when they visit 
 these islands, is only in accordance with our invari- 
 able treatment of rare birds. John Ruskin wrote the 
 mournful elegy of the last white egret known to have 
 been killed in England, and told how this ' living cloud 
 rather than a bird, with its frostwork of dead silver,' was
 
 FEBRUARY 43 
 
 battered to death by a labouring man, and sold to a 
 neighbouring bird stuffer. That is only what we must 
 expect from labouring men as long as people who are 
 not under the necessity of labouring remain ignorantly 
 indifferent. Surely ignorance is the only cause of this 
 indifference. Surely no lady would buy one of these 
 egret plumes, dyed, as they often are, red, blue, or even 
 black, if she remembered that they were once the 
 bridal dress of an innocent bird ; that in order to 
 supply them, peaceful colonies must be invaded and 
 ruthlessly violated at the most sacred season of the 
 year; and that this heartless trade must soon end in 
 the total extermination of white herons. 
 
 To what purpose, some hard-working philanthropist 
 may be heard saying, is all this outcry about the suffer- 
 ings of birds, when such clamant need exists for the 
 relief of human want and misery ? Will it not be time 
 enough to take up the cause of the first when that of 
 the last has been finally and successfully redressed ? 
 That might be so if man were neutral in his dealings 
 with these wild things ; if, instead of exerting himself 
 to destroy and torment them, he left them undisturbed. 
 This is no appeal for mission work among fowls, but 
 for the conversion of human beings from inhuman 
 practices. The Society for the Protection of Birds was 
 originally started for the purpose of discouraging the 
 'plume' trade, by informing women about its true 
 nature ; it has lately extended its scope so as to grapple 
 with needless and wanton destruction of birds. It does 
 not clamour for legislation; there is plenty of that
 
 44 FOWLS OF THE AIR 
 
 already, and to spare. It aims at the diffusion of sound 
 information on bird life and habits, and at shaming 
 people out of barbarous treatment of harmless, gener- 
 ally beautiful, and often useful species. Any one may 
 become a member for the trifling annual subscription 
 of half-a-crown, or a life member by the single payment 
 of a guinea. 1 The pamphlets and leaflets already pub- 
 lished by the Society exhibit, in addition to zeal, the 
 indispensable quality of discretion. No attempt is 
 made, as some good folks think necessary, to discourage 
 field sports. Many of its members would have no part 
 in it if the programme included putting an end to 
 shooting birds for sport. No intelligent observer of 
 human nature can have remained blind to this apparent 
 paradox, that among no class of persons no ! not even 
 among the fair sex are animals more sure of humane 
 treatment than at the hands of sportsmen. 
 
 Besides, as has been observed above but for the 
 game-laws, but for the preservation of wild birds for 
 sport, there would not be in our land at this day one in 
 ten thousand of the grouse, pheasants, and partridges 
 which adorn it. The red grouse is the only exclusively 
 British bird in the whole list. Collectors would have 
 swarmed from all parts of the world, and long ere this 
 grouse would have ceased to exist but for the protec- 
 tion of the game-laws. Let us even descend so low as 
 pigeon-shooting from traps. It is not, indeed, a field 
 sport, it is perhaps a stretch of courtesy to call it sport 
 of any sort, and I cannot bear to witness it. Never- 
 
 1 The Secretary is Mrs. F. E. Lemon, 3 Hanover Square, W.
 
 FEBRUAKY 45 
 
 theless, even pigeon-shooting has its bright side for 
 the victims. Hundreds of thousands of pigeons are 
 bred annually for the sole purpose of supplying pigeon 
 matches, which would never have existence at all if 
 pigeon-shooting were prohibited. During their brief 
 lives they are well tended and well fed ; they have no 
 knowledge of the fate in store for them ; and it may be 
 left to subtler intellects than mine to decide whether 
 "Tis better to be hatched and shot than never to be 
 hatched at all.' 
 
 With all this vexed question the Society for the 
 Protection of Birds does not concern itself. Some of 
 its members, indeed, who have travelled in countries 
 where all wild birds are scrupulously and spontaneously 
 protected by the natives, may feel more in sympathy 
 with the Mohammedan, who, from superstitious dread 
 of injuring the spirit of one of his ancestors, refrains 
 from taking the life of any wild bird, than they feel 
 with the idle English ' milor ' who ascends the Nile, not 
 content to enjoy the glorious sunshine or to explore 
 the relics of the most ancient civilisation in the world, 
 but intent upon carrying death and wounds among the 
 harmless waterfowl that crowd the river banks. 
 
 At the beginning of the great frost in February 1895 
 I was fishing in Thurso. A brace of beautiful wild 
 swans came up the river and offered to light on the 
 pool beside which I was standing, but on seeing me 
 they flew on. My gillie said he thought they would 
 settle at a place higher up the river, and urged me to 
 get a gun, for I would get a fine chance at them. I
 
 46 FOWLS OF THE AIR 
 
 turned and said, ' Do you know that if I were to get 
 twenty guineas for every swan I bagged, I never would 
 fire at one of them?' He looked half amused, half 
 incredulous, but many sportsmen will understand my 
 feelings. I don't want to make myself out better than 
 I am. I was bred a sportsman, and though I shoot no 
 longer, I would be ashamed to compound for sins I am 
 inclined for (fishing, for instance) by damning those I 
 have no mind for ; and the Society for the Protection 
 of Birds have done well in refraining from interference 
 with legitimate sport. 
 
 Of what the law can do, a great deal perhaps all 
 that can be done has been done in this country. The 
 more defenceless species have profited by the low estate 
 to which game preservation has reduced birds of prey. 
 Song birds and other small kinds were never probably 
 so numerous as at the present time. But several birds 
 are still killed as ' vermin,' which it is the duty of the 
 Society to make known in their true character. The 
 kestrel dies because he is a hawk (to speak more 
 strictly, a falcon), but his chief prey is mice and beetles. 
 Owls have long enjoyed evil repute with gamekeepers, 
 because for every five hundred mice and rats he catches, 
 an owl will pick up a young pheasant or partridge, of 
 which neither, by the bye, has any business to be 
 abroad at night. Then there is another bird which 
 has suffered grievously by misnomer, being called in 
 the vulgar tongue a fern-owl, night-hawk, or goat- 
 sucker. But seeing that he is a relative of the swallows, 
 living honestly by catching cockchafers and moths, it
 
 FEBRUARY 47 
 
 is kinder to give him his fourth popular name of night- 
 jar. Of all the birds of the heath and brake, none is 
 more absolutely innocuous, none more fascinating than 
 this one, yet hundreds are slain every year because 
 foolish persons believe they hurt game or suck the 
 milk of cattle ! 
 
 So great has been the increase of certain small birds 
 in cultivated districts, that it is sometimes necessary to 
 apply a check in place of the natural one that has 
 been removed. But, for pity's sake, let it be applied in 
 the form of sudden death, and not imprisonment. The 
 bird-catcher's trade is full of untold horrors, not less 
 repulsive than those of the plume trade. Captivity is 
 bitter to every living creature ; it must be doubly bitter 
 when it involves the deprivation of a faculty distin- 
 guishing birds from all other warm-blooded animals 
 except bats a faculty, too, which has been the type of 
 freedom in all ages, and which man has applied all his 
 ingenuity to acquire, without success. 
 
 It is, of course, true that those who cultivate a craze 
 for caged birds are not intentionally cruel. They 
 lavish every kind of attention, wise and unwise, on 
 their pets. It is true, too, that abundant warmth and 
 food, combined with little exercise, soon tend in some 
 species to dull the prisoner's craving for liberty, and 
 may even cast a torpor over the seasonal impulse to 
 migrate. But even if it were a pleasant thought that 
 a cage-bird's life is only rendered endurable by the 
 effect of overfeeding on its natural faculties, a vast 
 amount of suffering and of lingering death is brought
 
 48 RABBIT-PROOF PLANTS 
 
 upon the fowls of the air by the preliminary stages of 
 the bird-catcher's craft. 
 
 Let me return, in conclusion, to Caithness, whither 
 I have dragged the reader once already. There is no 
 bird more typical of those northern wastes than the 
 pretty snow-bunting. There are many mammals and 
 birds which don white raiment in winter to match the 
 surrounding pallor, but the snow-bunting alone, I think, 
 among all birds, assumes a whiter plumage in summer 
 than in winter. The reason seems obvious that, whereas 
 it resorts in winter to temperate climes, where a piebald 
 coat will serve, it goes far north to breed on snowy up- 
 lands, where white is essential to concealment about the 
 nest. 
 
 Xlla 
 
 In the first series of these irresponsible papers I dis- 
 Rabbit-proof course( l upon the discrimination shown by 
 plants various animals in their choice of food, and 
 furnished a list of the shrubs and herbs which long and 
 bitter experience had proved to be immune from rabbits. 
 Exception was taken to some of these by certain critics, 
 who pronounced my list too liberal, and averred either 
 that I had spoken unadvisedly, or that the malice of 
 their rabbits was of a more atrocious grain than that of 
 mine. Well, all I can say is this, that rabbits do greatly 
 abound in the woods wherein I have exposed to their 
 attacks all the plants named in my list, and that these 
 have not only survived, but flourished. It is quite true 
 that some of these shrubs, when first planted out, are 
 liable to be gnawed, out of wantonness, curiosity, or sheer
 
 FEBRUARY 49 
 
 ' cussedness/ and it is well to give them the protection 
 of wire for the first season or two, after which they may 
 be considered safe. It is also true that some herbaceous 
 plants, such as the Japanese day-lily (Hemerocallis), are 
 apt to be tasted when first pushing a succulent growth 
 in spring ; but when they have become established, little 
 harm results from this, and when the clump has grown 
 strong and has assimilated with its surroundings lost its 
 newly-planted look rabbits pay it no further attention. 
 So many people have expressed their gratitude for 
 the publication of the list in the first series, that it has 
 occurred to me that it might be useful to reprint it as 
 an appendix to the present volume, with certain addi- 
 tions which subsequent experience has confirmed. These 
 additions are, among shrubs, Choysia ternata, Clematis 
 (all species), Olearia hassti, Cassinia (Diplopappus) 
 fulvida, Berberis (all species), Rubus (including the 
 fine American species); and among herbs, Spircea (all 
 species), bamboos (many, probably all, species), day-lilies, 
 lily of the valley, New Zealand flax, etc. 
 
 XIII 
 
 The present winter (1899), remarkably mild up to 
 now, has confirmed the impression which A mUd 
 must often have suggested itself to observers winter 
 of wild animals, namely, that their existence is devoted 
 to two main objects the supply of food and the duty 
 of reproduction. All through January there has been 
 no lack of food ; not even the film of ice has crusted 
 the pools; the grass has grown without a check, and 
 D
 
 50 A MILD WINTER 
 
 every still corner is dancing with winged insects. A 
 few days since the garden bees were busy in the snow- 
 drop bells, and over a bed of wallflower there was a 
 sound of summer wings. The question of commissariat 
 therefore causes no anxiety, and the minds of beast and 
 bird are turning lightly and prematurely to thoughts of 
 love. The blackbirds, for instance, are behaving in 
 quite a delirious way; the hen birds looking out for 
 felicitous nesting-places, and some of the males in full 
 song. This is very exceptional at this season. Thrushes 
 an odd one here and there are always ready to tune 
 up after a week of warm weather, but the merle is much 
 less easily beguiled into amatory expression. Never till 
 this year did I hear the song of a blackbird on January 
 2nd ; since that day, when he was decidedly staccato, he 
 has practised incessantly, and now accomplishes the 
 whole vernal operetta, while others near him are also 
 taking up the strain. 
 
 Evidently they have been thrown out of their reckon- 
 ing. The blackbird's song is purely hymeneal; the 
 prudent pere de famille exhorts his wife betimes : ' Look 
 here, this has been a season of plenty ; there are very few 
 families in mourning, and it will be difficult to get a 
 house for the season unless you set about it soon. Just 
 you look about you, will you ? and 1 11 sit and sing while 
 you are busy.' There is some excuse for this confusion 
 of dates ; to-day (February 3rd) I saw hollyhocks, mari- 
 golds, and scarlet geranium in bloom in the open. 
 
 Many of the time-honoured prognostications of a hard 
 winter have been discredited this year. There was a
 
 FEBRUARY 51 
 
 heavy crop of hips and haws ; holly berries were 
 unusually abundant, and as yet there is little diminu- 
 tion in the store. Perhaps this provender may come in 
 handy still. There is a very large holly tree close 
 some people think too close to my window, which 
 bears a very large crop each year. Its branches are still 
 thickly set with scarlet fruit, although wood-pigeons 
 (there were six in it one morning lately) and pheasants 
 resort to it ' when so dispoged.' But there have been 
 none of the usual visits of redwings ; while blackbirds 
 and thrushes despise it altogether, as earthworms are to 
 be had in abundance. A pair of fine mistletoe thrushes 
 kept me company as long as an old spindle bush had 
 any rosy berries left, but they finished these a fortnight 
 ago, and have gone afield for something more succulent 
 than holly berries. 
 
 XIV 
 
 In the present painfully congested state of knowledge, 
 it amounts almost to a calamity when a fresh The curlew 
 discovery dispels some venerable mystery. Sand P i P er 
 Hence it is with mingled feelings that one learns that 
 the egg of the curlew sandpiper has at last been 
 found. Hitherto the knot and the curlew sandpiper, 
 two diminutive and nearly related members of the sub- 
 family of Snipes, and both well known on our coasts as 
 spring and autumn passengers, have maintained the 
 distinction of being the only British birds which have 
 succeeded in defying the curiosity of egg-collectors. 
 Not a single egg of either species has ever been found
 
 52 FUDDLING CHUB 
 
 till, last year (1897), Mr. Popham brought back from 
 the Yenesei a clutch of eggs of the curlew sandpiper, 
 together with the parent birds. Nestlings of the knot 
 have been found many years ago in Melville Island, 
 and lately in Grinnell Land, so it seems merely a ques- 
 tion of time when this little traveller also must yield up 
 its domestic secrets. 
 
 XV 
 
 Owners of trout-streams, especially those of Hertford- 
 Fuddling shire, are often driven to the verge of despair 
 chub jjy t- ne irrepressible increase of coarse fish. 
 Dace and chub are almost as inimical to the welfare 
 and abundance of trout as is the pirate pike. Their 
 hostility is not overt, but they consume a vast amount 
 of good food which ought to descend into nobler gullets, 
 and no doubt they devour a quantity of trout spawn. 
 Pike may be snared and shot ; to keep them within 
 limits is merely a question of diligence ; but no amount 
 of diligence will rid a stream of dace and chub. A 
 certain number may be taken in nets; but where 
 willows and alders abound to the advantage of the 
 stream, effective netting cannot be carried out. 
 
 Now dace and chub are chiefly known in the southern 
 and Midland counties ; but it is in the north that wise 
 men have devised an insidious way of ridding them- 
 selves of the pest. Chub, locally known as 'skellies,' 
 exist naturally in great quantities in that noble stream 
 the Cumberland Eden, and here salmon and trout 
 anglers avail themselves of the process known by the
 
 FEBRUARY 53 
 
 delightful title of 'fuddling chub.' The very term 
 has a fascination in it, and I commend the plan to 
 the attention of south- country conservators as well 
 worthy of a trial at the present season. The recipe is 
 as follows : Boil 1| Ib. of rice until rather soft (not so 
 soft as for the table), let it cool, then add 1| Ib. of 
 flour, one ounce of Cocculus Indicus, and crumble up 
 with the whole a threepenny loaf of stale bread. Mix 
 all together with the hands, and throw into the haunts 
 of chub in pieces about the size of a pea. The chub 
 eat it, presently float on the top incapably drunk, and 
 may be ladled out. It is said that trout do not take it, 
 but the experiment should be carried out cautiously at 
 first. 
 
 XVI 
 
 The real tooth of winter (1898) has come upon us with 
 the lengthening days ; the warmth of Yuletide 
 has passed away, and a terrible north wind Highland 
 
 Strath 
 
 drives down our Highland strath. The sky, 
 yesterday so blue, is uniformly grey, and the snow- 
 flakes fly thickly. Far up on the bosom of Beinn 
 Uarie one can discern, in the clearer intervals, the 
 great corrie, where the drifts seethe and whirl; last 
 week you might have basked there in the sun, looking 
 forth upon the wide firth ; to-day it would be death to 
 venture within that awful chamber of snow. 
 
 On the smooth holm beside the river stands a sub- 
 stantial farmhouse, where dwells one of those great 
 sheep-farmers who have had to bear so much abuse for 
 displacing the crofters. A young woman comes out,
 
 54 FROM A HIGHLAND STRATH 
 
 and steps briskly over the sward, heeding the bitter 
 blast as little as if it were a zephyr of the ^Egean. 
 A harmony in rose and silver-grey. Roses are in her 
 cheeks such roses as only youth at its best can grow ; 
 grey her dress a thick, short skirt of homespun over 
 good serviceable boots a short cloak, held close to 
 the throat with one ungloved, well-shaped hand and a 
 grey Tam-o'-Shanter pulled well down over pale golden 
 hair. There is a flash of scarlet somewhere, not to be 
 defined is it handkerchief, or glimpse of petticoat, or 
 corner of ribbon ? a spark of vivid colour rendering 
 the rest more delicate. A prettier picture than this 
 lass marching through the storm you would not find in 
 all the streets and parks of London. One of Mr. Black's 
 braves must have come in captive on the spot. 
 
 Will our dear, fine ladies not read a moral therein ? 
 Not, indeed, that they should wear Tam-o'-Shanters 
 at matindes, or forswear gloves in populous places, but 
 the old, threadbare precept simplex munditiis. 
 What return does anybody, except the milliners, 
 derive from the vast outlay hi fine feathers and 
 'picture' hats? It is shining eyes and hair, and 
 shapely limbs and je ne scais quoi not ' ospreys ' 
 and humming-birds and aniline dyes that does for 
 the enemy. But the enemy is done for daily, in spite 
 of these detriments to fascination (for such, in most 
 cases, they really are). The plea here is not for him, 
 but on behalf of innumerable beautiful and harmless 
 creatures, who suffer by reason of extravagant adorn- 
 ment of ladies' hats.
 
 FEBRUARY 55 
 
 Perhaps I have said enough upon this matter already, 
 but since the notes on pp. 37-44 were penned, the 
 question has entered upon a new phase. The Society 
 for the Protection of Birds has been so busy making 
 known by lectures and leaflets the truly abominable 
 proceeding necessary to keep up the supply of ' ospreys/ 
 that the demand has been affected. Ladies having 
 refused to decorate themselves with plumes so basely 
 borrowed, Monsieur le plumassier has been compelled 
 to resort to artifice. Hitherto he would have been 
 righteously indignant had anybody hinted that his 
 ' ospreys ' were not genuine ; now he protests that they 
 are artificial. Many ladies have bought them on this 
 assurance, and it is time to inform them that they are 
 being deceived. So greedily is the harvest being reaped, 
 so abundant are the consignments from Virginia and 
 India, that it would not pay to fabricate white heron 
 plume. Let ladies be persuaded, therefore, to decline 
 to help off the trade with its ill-gotten stock, and 
 that a cock's plume or a bunch of ribbons even 
 a Tam-o'-Shanter will exact quite as much homage 
 from the other sex as the rarest plumes from 
 outre-mer. 
 
 The traffic in 'ospreys' is only one of many other 
 branches which keeps collectors busy. Birds of 
 Paradise, humming-birds, chatterers, all the living 
 jewellery of the tropics, is being depleted to satisfy 
 this truly savage fashion. A remarkable tirade has 
 been uttered recently by the Jesuit Victor Cathrein 
 against the growing tenderness of modern Christians
 
 56 THE PASSING OF WINTEK 
 
 towards the lower animals. This he denounces as 
 un-Christianlike and demoralising, on the theological 
 ground that these creatures have no rights, and that 
 man is as free to tear them in pieces or destroy them 
 as he is to ruin his own clothes or pull a peony to 
 pieces. Happily, matters have gone too far for any 
 such anthropocentric doctrine to find any echo in 
 Britain, through it is true that Christians have a 
 good deal still to learn from Mahommedans in this 
 respect, as anybody may observe by comparing street 
 scenes in Naples with those in Constantinople. Eng- 
 lish ladies of fashion have it much in their power to 
 promote the humane treatment of their feathered 
 fellow-creatures ; nor will they fail to do so when 
 they understand how to do it, without the slightest 
 sacrifice of grace or splendour in attire without even 
 adopting the rule of simplex munditiis. 
 
 XVII 
 
 Seldom is there a night so still that he who is abroad 
 rue Passing or watching from an open window is not 
 of winter consc i ous o f an indefinable stir, it may be 
 among the treetops or upon the beach, among the 
 summer meadows or on the snowy hillside. Not the 
 wind, albeit that often gives a momentary sigh, nor the 
 going of beast and bird, nor the movement of men ; it 
 is something apart from these, intangible, like the 
 change upon a sleeping child before it wakes. It is as 
 if the spiritual sentries which we are fond to imagine
 
 FEBKUAKY 57 
 
 keeping ward over the slumbering world were giving 
 place to the day reliefs before the sounding of the 
 grand reveille. 
 
 Be it this, or be it some other, nobody who is in tune 
 with nature will be insensible thereof, nor fail to recog- 
 nise in the calendar a counterpart to this daily revival. 
 It comes in the thrill running through the land ere it 
 wakes from the sleep of winter. Our seasons are so 
 variable that there is sometimes plant growth in every 
 month. The earth carried into the winter that is just 
 passing away (1899-1900) so much of the heat imparted 
 by a gracious summer, that the heliotrope of all 
 common bedding plants most sensitive to cold was 
 flowering in open borders on the west coast of Scotland 
 as late as the 8th of December. Then the frost got in 
 its tooth for a short spell, yet the first snowdrop flowered 
 on the 28th of that month. Still, even the singing of 
 credulous thrushes did not delude one into the belief 
 that winter was past. It was a full month later when 
 an indescribable something in the morning air made 
 one aware that a change had taken effect ; that winter 
 was no longer master ; that steam was getting up, and 
 the business of the year was afoot. Since that day there 
 has been a set-back ; furious snow-storms and nights of 
 cruel frost have interrupted the business; but it has 
 been proceeding all the same, and the dead months are 
 behind us. 
 
 Even here, seven hundred miles north of London, 
 about as far north as you can get without falling over 
 the edge of our little island, with the glen wrapped in
 
 58 THE PASSING OF WINTER 
 
 snow and the river bound in arctic fetters, save here 
 and there a swifter reach running dark amid the sur- 
 rounding whiteness, one feels assured that 'joy cometh 
 in the morning.' It is not merely experience of 
 February Sprokelmaund, as the Dutch call it, the 
 breaking-up month that assures one of this. Depend 
 upon it, the earth is alive and watchful ; the very alder 
 buds have blushed a conscious purple ; although not a 
 green leaf will appear for ten weeks to come, the invis- 
 ible seamstresses are preparing for the gala month of 
 June. 
 
 Yet, of a surety, a stranger in this northern land 
 above all, a stranger fatuously bent upon salmon-fishing 
 might be tempted to curse his own folly, or his 
 friend's deceitful assurance, which induced him to incur 
 exile at such a season from the inglorious comforts of 
 his club. Fish ! How can he fish in a frozen river ? 
 'Maybe there will be a change coming before many days,' 
 observes the consolatory gillie. A change ! Good need 
 for it ! Look at the deer, low on the hill above the lodge, 
 crouching away from the fierce nor'easter, densely 
 charged with stinging snow-needles. They seem to 
 have made up their minds for the worst, and run risk 
 of winding the abhorred odour of man rather than 
 endure the unmitigated misery on the tops. It is not 
 like the same world which, two nights ago, he left in 
 London. There, the elm tops were swaying in a wet 
 sou'wester, the pavements flowed with mire, and an 
 ordinary overcoat was oppressive. Here the very breath 
 freezes on the beard, and woe to the unwary who avails
 
 FEBRUAEY 59 
 
 himself' not of the thickest woollen webs. Ungrateful 
 mortal ! Know you not that no pleasures in life are so 
 exquisite as those which come of contrast ? Think of 
 the murky capital you have left behind, but think of it 
 in gratitude for the lot which has landed you in a 
 county where you could not find a teaspoonful of mud 
 were you offered its weight in diamonds. 
 
 Well, the stranger has come to fish, and has nothing 
 else to do, unless he sit down and write to the papers 
 about the shortcomings and long delays of the High- 
 land Railway ; so he had best do as I did yield to the 
 sanguine gillie's persuasion, and put a fly over what 
 open water may be found. We had spent several hours 
 in a snowdrift at Dalwhinnie, therefore it was late hi 
 the afternoon of the third day from leaving Euston that 
 I reached my sub-arctic quarters. Just below the lodge 
 a long, swift sweep of the Helmsdale was free from ice, 
 save for a few feet on each side a famous cast for 
 spring salmon; and about 4 P.M. I began hurling a 
 huge ' Goldsmith,' a flamboyant confection of yellow 
 feathers, scarlet wool, and silver tinsel, across the leaden- 
 coloured surface of the flood. It was bitterly, bitterly 
 cold ; the line froze to the rings ; the fly good save us ! 
 'twas as like a young crocodile as any winged insect 
 the fly, I say, had to be sucked clear of ice from time 
 to time ; surely no fish can be astir in such a season. 
 Ha ! there is one, anyhow, as may be seen by the most 
 incredulous in a heavy swirl behind the lure. He would 
 not come again, so we both voted him a kelt, and went 
 on. Twenty yards lower I fastened in something, a
 
 60 SPRING SALMON 
 
 manifest kelt, which was expiscated, and duly returned 
 unhurt. 
 
 Well, if kelts are on the move, clean fish may be so 
 also ; and I fished on in momentary expectation, having, 
 from long experience, faith in the seasonal, if irrational, 
 impulse which drives salmon from the abundant store- 
 house of the ocean into the lean quarters of a Highland 
 torrent, no matter how inclement may be the time. It 
 came at last a good solid 'rug' under water, just 
 where the current narrowed between two opposing ice- 
 floes, and a few minutes of vigorous exercise set the 
 blood circulating in fine style. There were moments 
 of exceeding apprehension, when the fish evinced a 
 decided hankering for shelter under the ice at my feet ; 
 but eighteen feet of greenheart availed to hold him 
 clear, and in five minutes I was enjoying one of the 
 fairest sights upon which an angler's eyes may feast 
 themselves a new-run salmon reposing upon a wreath 
 of stainless snow. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 The change in men and manners noted by one crossing 
 
 spring tne Moray Firth is not less remarkable than 
 
 salmon ^^ j n ^ Q habits and behaviour of birds 
 
 which distinguishes the districts north and south of 
 
 that stately fiord. The Saxon element predominates in 
 
 the counties bordering upon Aberdeen; but cross the 
 
 Firth, pass into the dreary tableland of Caithness, and 
 
 you encounter unmistakable Scandinavian traits in
 
 FEBRUARY 61 
 
 the population. Now Norsemen and Saxons may be 
 traced to a common Germanic stock, but the first 
 seem to have monopolised William of Wykeham's 
 adage, ' Manners makyth man,' and succeed in making 
 intercourse exceedingly agreeable all round. Norse 
 blood, with an infusion of Celtic, produces a race pro- 
 bably of superior social amenity to any other. This 
 adds immensely to the zest of field-sports in penulti- 
 mate Thule, especially to that of early salmon fishing, 
 which involves the spending of long hours by the water- 
 side in solitude, save for the presence of the attendant 
 gillie. 
 
 Now, there be gillies and gillies. An Irishman in 
 that capacity is sure to be amusing, a Highlander 
 generally sympathetic; both perhaps succeed in con- 
 cealing their total disregard of veracity. As for the 
 Lowland Scot, you may place implicit reliance on the 
 few observations he emits, but his incorrigible dourness 
 has a depressing effect. It is the Norse Highlander 
 of Caithness who alone fulfils the part to perfection, 
 putting himself in harmony with all his employer's 
 moods, ready to discuss politics, agriculture, literature, 
 or what not, yet thoroughly sound and true in all 
 pertaining to his craft. 
 
 Great is the joy to stand with such a man on the 
 familiar marge ; the well-known landscape lies around 
 weather-wan grass brown, stunted heather dark, 
 blotchy ploughed land stretching away without a tree, 
 hardly a superfluous bush to break the monotony of it, 
 to the low upland horizon of that purple blue peculiar
 
 62 SPRING SALMON 
 
 to northern atmosphere. It has been a winter mild 
 almost beyond precedent. There has been no ice, fish 
 have been running up for weeks, and the river flows on 
 as of yore, full of promise and full of mystery the 
 fundamental charm of angling. The current ripples 
 under the cliff on the far side with exactly the same 
 eddies as it did twelve months ago, when your fly, 
 passing the point of yonder sunken rock, suddenly 
 stopped, the line tightened, the greenheart bent, the 
 reel screeched, and, ten minutes later, the first clean 
 fish of 1897 drew the index of the steelyard to an 
 honest twelve pounds. 
 
 We don't waste much time at this season in discussing 
 the merits of different flies. A Highlander's imagina- 
 tion runs riot in change; a Lowlander is obstinate in 
 preference for some particular pattern, and turns sulky 
 if you hesitate to conform exactly to what he prescribes ; 
 but a Norseman is sensible, all he stipulates for is size ; 
 provided the lure be big enough to stir fish lying in a 
 snow-fed stream, he sets no store by nice shades of 
 colour or variety of material. On this 'occasion a new 
 device from the Dee called the ' Mar Lodge ' an elegant 
 confection of black silk, silver tinsel, and jungle-fowl 
 hackles is dispatched to its mission on the waters. 
 Again and again it traverses the well-remembered spot 
 at the rock point ; there is nobody at home there to-day. 
 Twenty yards lower, where the channel shoals and 
 broadens, comes that indescribable elastic ' draw ' which 
 tells of a fish firmly hooked under water ; the exquisite 
 spasm traverses line and rod, making all the fisherman's
 
 FEBRUARY 63 
 
 ganglia tingle ; but immediately there follows a figure- 
 of-eight movement, unmistakable token of the unclean. 
 Hope is restored for a moment by a spirited dash up 
 stream, but that ends by the fish showing on the sur- 
 face and revealing the white body and dark fins which 
 distinguish the unwelcome kelt. Lose no time over 
 him; get hold of the line, James (fancy this heir of 
 Vikings answering to commonplace 'James!' he ought 
 to be Magnus or Olaf), and draw the beast ashore. Ah ! 
 see how he has chewed up the ' Mar Lodge ' ; serve me 
 right for displaying fancy articles at 3s. 6d. each when 
 kelts are about. 
 
 Operations are resumed with a fly of tougher materials, 
 fully three inches long, with a body of indestructible 
 pig's wool, dyed, like the Northumbrian miner's hand- 
 kerchief ' Nane o' yer gaudy collors ; just gie me plain 
 reed and yalley ! ' and lapped with stout silver twist 
 instead of tinsel. Kelts are on the job to-day, and keep 
 one's nerves alert ; but never a ' sea-fish ' makes a sign 
 till the light is beginning to fail. It is at Hell Pool 
 famed for holding fish, but of indifferent repute as a 
 good place for raising them, by reason of its great 
 depth that we meet him. The river here, rushing 
 full against an opposing crag, wheels with mighty 
 tumult to the right. It is a bad place to fish, for 
 the wind (it is always blowing in Caithness) flies in 
 violent gusts now here, now there now behind, now 
 before. Far out of reach, just where there are a few 
 square yards of quiet water at the tail of the pool, a 
 fish, unmistakably clean, makes a head-and-tail rise.
 
 64 SPRING SALMON 
 
 ' That one will take if you can cover him,' quoth the 
 watchful James. 
 
 Ay, but how to cover him ? he is full forty yards 
 away, and the cliff' bars all nearer approach. The only 
 plan is to make a wide circuit round the cliff through 
 the moor; which we proceed to do in feverish haste, 
 for it will be dark in half an hour. Then there is a 
 scramble down a kind of watercourse a mere scar in 
 the precipice transacted not without abrasion and the 
 admission of cold water to very sensitive parts of the 
 person; and at last we stand together on a strip of 
 rock-strewn turf beside the river. 
 
 Loudly thumps the fisher's heart against his ribs as 
 the line extends over the oily surface ; it is a moment 
 of suspense verging on the painful. The current is 
 strong, and brings the fly round quick, but not too 
 quick for a quicker pair of eyes below. There is a 
 gleam a snatch then begins the old game of pulley- 
 hauley, in which treble gut puts the odds heavily on 
 the landward side. No kelt this, but a salmon fresh 
 from the tide, which in due time lies high and dry in 
 the twilight one of the most perfectly beautiful of all 
 living creatures. 
 
 As we stand at the opening of a new season, I don't 
 mind giving a worthy Scandinavian the benefit of an 
 advertisement by quoting verbatim a handbill which 
 has come to me.
 
 FEBRUARY 
 
 G5 
 
 LOOK HER ! SALMON ! 
 
 The honourable travellers are averted to, that 
 undersigned, who lives in Fjorde pr. Vol. den 
 Eomsdals county, Norway, short or long time, 
 hires out a good Salmonriver. Good lodging 
 finds. 
 
 DIDRIK MAAN,
 
 XIX 
 
 WE live in an age of shattered illusions : one 
 by one our most cherished traditions are 
 proved incontestably to be irreconcilable with 
 common sense. It was but last year (1897) that an 
 impious Scot relegated Bruce's spider to the realm of 
 myth, and now Dr. Lowe comes cranking in l to show 
 that our yew trees, for which the epithet 'immemorial' 
 seems to have been specially devised, can lay no claim 
 to extraordinary antiquity. It is not easy to see how, 
 as a faithful witness, he could have avoided doing so, 
 seeing that he has undertaken, and right well dis- 
 charged, the task of recording all the notable yews in 
 these islands. The slow growth of the yew, its im- 
 mutable mantle of sombre green, its frequent presence 
 in God's acre, are all features rendering this tree a 
 pliant accomplice with tradition, which is ever ready 
 to invest familiar objects with marvellous attributes. 
 The old fond beliefs will hardly be shaken by the 
 
 1 The Yew Trees of Great Britain and Ireland. By John Lowe, 
 M.D. London : Macmillan and Co.
 
 MARCH 67 
 
 conscientious verdict of Dr. Lowe; but botanists 
 and cold men of science cannot but be grateful to 
 him for setting out so clearly the evidence on which 
 it is founded. He starts with an examination of De 
 Candolle's assumption that the age of a yew may be 
 reckoned accurately by counting the concentric rings 
 of growth in the trunk, and shows how fallacious this 
 is, especially in a tree of the peculiar habit of the yew, 
 and so frequently pollarded. He next examines the 
 few historical records from which the exact age of 
 individual trees can be ascertained, and is unable to 
 find one which shows an age greater than two hundred 
 years. This is a sorry surrender of the computation 
 which made out the Fortingall tree, in Perthshire, with 
 its enormous circumference of fifty-four feet, to be from 
 2500 to 2700 years old, or the Clontarf yew to be the 
 one under which Brian Boruibh breathed his last in 
 1014 Tradition is positive that the yews now in 
 Kinglye Bottom, near Chichester, were there when 
 the Norsemen landed in Sussex in the ninth and 
 tenth centuries. 'Had it been said,' observes Dr. 
 Lowe drily, ' that " yews were there," the statement 
 would have been accurate ; but that " the yews," mean- 
 ing those still existing, were then in being is too large 
 a demand on our credulity, as there is no tree at that 
 place which exceeds fifteen feet four inches in girth, or 
 possibly about five hundred years of age.' 
 
 Yews were of national importance when, archers being 
 the most important part of English infantry, it was 
 enacted by a statute of Edward iv. that ' every English-
 
 68 FLOWERLESS PLANTS 
 
 man, and every Irishman dwelling with Englishmen, 
 should have a bow of his own height, made either of 
 yew, wych- hazel, ash, or anulone laburnum.' But yew 
 was the best, and in time the demand grew beyond the 
 supply. 
 
 There is a craze just now for books on country 
 matters, and in consequence a vast amount of twaddle 
 is published annually. But Dr. Lowe has produced 
 something of sterling merit ; his statistics are so care- 
 fully compiled, and his descriptions so thoughtfully pre- 
 pared, that his work will remain probably for generations 
 the chief authority on the subject. 
 
 But why in the world should Dr. Lowe have con- 
 sulted Dr. Johnson on the etymology of yew ? It has 
 led him into the blunder of connecting the name 
 with ' ivy,' from which it is quite distinct. Moreover, 
 the Irish for yew cannot be written either whar or 
 jubar, the Celtic alphabet being destitute of both w 
 and j. It is iubhar, pronounced ' ewer ' or ' yure.' 
 
 XX 
 
 Of all the multitude of provinces into which natural 
 Fioweriess science, as it was known to Bacon, has been 
 Plants split, each with its separate yet interdepen- 
 dent army of workers, there is none, perhaps, with less 
 external attraction for the amateur than the study of 
 cryptogams. Plants destitute of flowers and leaves 
 must seem wanting in the essential charm of the 
 vegetable kingdom. Yet there is no subdivision of
 
 MARCH 69 
 
 knowledge in which original discovery is so likely as 
 that of cryptogamy, wherein Dr. Cooke has long ago 
 established his renown, and he has now provided a 
 handy guide-book to one of the counties of that 
 province. 
 
 This is well, because cryptogamy the study of 
 ferns, mosses, lichens, algae, and fungi has already 
 far outstripped the scope of a single handbook. The 
 marvellous multitude and variety of these humble 
 forms of organic life is well illustrated by the fact that 
 Dr. Cooke's new treatise on mycology, 1 dealing ex- 
 clusively with fungi, introduces the student to a group 
 of vegetables already classified into no fewer than 40,000 
 species ! Nor is this group one that civilised man can 
 afford to neglect. Many forms of disease, both in 
 animals and food plants, are now known to be the 
 result of fungus flourishing on and destroying living 
 organisms. For instance, if any remedy can be found 
 for the destructive salmon disease, it will arise from 
 more light on the life history of the aquatic fungus 
 Saprolegnia. The rusts and smuts that attack cereal 
 crops used to be much more formidable before their 
 true nature as fungi was understood; and the steady 
 advance in bacteriological research is full of promise of 
 a more intelligent system of dealing with human ail- 
 ments, now that many are known, and more are 
 suspected, to be caused by minute fungoid organisms. 
 
 On the other hand, fuller knowledge will teach us 
 
 1 Introduction to the Study of Fungi. By M. C. Cooke, LL.D. 
 London : A. and C. Black.
 
 70 FLOWERLESS PLANTS 
 
 how to multiply and cultivate those species which have 
 commercial or esculent value. Everybody would eat 
 truffles if he had the chance, but the supply is limited 
 by ignorance of a sure method of propagation. This 
 ignorance can only be dispelled by scientific study ; and 
 it is worth while to make the effort, because, so prolific 
 is this excellent little fungus by nature, that the in- 
 habitants of Apt, relying on haphazard and traditional 
 industry, send four thousand pounds weekly to market 
 during the season, and about thirty tons are collected 
 annually in the department of Vaucluse. Truffle-hunt- 
 ing was formally a profitable industry in the southern 
 counties of England, but it has well nigh expired, as the 
 French species possesses a finer flavour. But has any one 
 tried to introduce the French truffle to English soil ? 
 
 To those who adopt scientific research as a pastime, 
 the study of fungi may be commended as one which 
 holds out more hope of original discovery than most 
 branches of science. Dr. Cooke is too modest to repeat 
 a story about himself, but it is worth telling as an 
 illustration of the interest arising out of his chosen 
 pursuit. In Dr. Cooke's house there was a wall, which, 
 in spite of all repairs, remained persistently damp. It 
 was papered and varnished, but paper and varnish were 
 destroyed by a growth of mould. Had Dr. Cooke been 
 an ordinary mortal, such as a collector of snuffer-trays 
 or old postage-stamps, he would have told his house- 
 maid to scrub the mould off" as fast as it grew. But 
 Dr. Cooke is not an ordinary mortal he is a myco- 
 logist; so he carefully protected the mould patches
 
 MARCH 71 
 
 and watched them through the microscope for many 
 months. And he had his reward ; for upon this wall, 
 within a few feet of his fireside, he identified four 
 species of fungi hitherto unknown to science, one of 
 which constituted a new genus. It must, indeed, be 
 admitted that it is not every gentleman whose woman- 
 kind would smile on this form of chamber botany. 
 
 XXI 
 
 Few people may admit without demur the position I 
 am going to claim for the mole among friends 
 of agriculture; even its warmest advocates 
 have to acknowledge that in discharge of its duties this 
 subterranean policeman occasions a good deal of irrita- 
 tion, both to the farmer and gardener. The farmer is 
 naturally incensed when he finds that a mole has been 
 running up and down under the drills of newly hoed 
 turnips, throwing the young plants out of the ground, 
 apparently in wanton mischief, for the animal does not 
 eat them ; the gardener curses the beast that disfigures 
 his well-kept lawns, and perhaps uproots newly planted 
 carnations in his borders or rows of sprouting peas. 
 Agreed these habits are vexatious; but what is the 
 mole's object in carrying on like this ? It is one of the 
 most ravenous animals on the face of more correctly, 
 under the face of the earth, yet it disdains vegetable 
 food. It disturbs the young turnips and carnations, 
 because they have a peculiar attraction for the destruc- 
 tive wireworm grub of the cockchafer; it disfigures
 
 72 THE MOLE 
 
 grass pastures and lawns chiefly in pursuit of the 
 leather grub the ' pout ' of the Scottish farmer which 
 is the larva of the common too common daddy-long- 
 legs. 
 
 A few summers ago I was staying with a farmer hi 
 Somersetshire, and I was amazed by the hordes of 
 daddy-long-legs which swarmed over his pastures. I 
 never saw this insect in anything like similar numbers ; 
 they gave the fields the appearance of being covered 
 with a film of mist. When I reflected that every one of 
 these millions had existed for three years underground 
 as a leather grub, devouring the roots of the sweetest 
 grasses, and impoverishing the pasture, I formed a faint 
 idea of the mischief which their presence represented, 
 and I looked about for traces of their natural enemy, 
 the mole. Not a single mole-cast was to be seen 
 throughout my friend's territory ! When I observed to 
 him that it was a pity there were no moles to combat 
 this formidable pest. ' Moles ! ' quoth he ; 'we don't 
 allow any of that vermin. Every parish in the county 
 employs a mole-catcher, and I think we have got rid of 
 them pretty well.' 
 
 Now what is the obvious lesson from this? Why, 
 that if you object to mole-casts and mole-runs, a large 
 part of your crop will never reach maturity. Your 
 grass land will ' go back ' ; your young corn will show 
 large bare patches where the grubs have cut it, and 
 there will be numerous blanks in your turnip drills. 
 Better far better to leave the moles to their silent, 
 beneficent duties, and spend the money which you give
 
 MARCH 73 
 
 to the mole-catcher in spreading the freshly turned 
 mole- cast, thus securing the finest possible top dressing 
 for your pasture. There is the greater necessity for 
 this, because the presence of moles is the only effective 
 check on leather grubs and wireworuis, especially on 
 permanent pasture. When the land is in rotation, 
 indeed, rooks, starlings, and, in maritime districts, sea- 
 gulls, follow the plough and devour large numbers of 
 them ; but where the land is laid down to grass, these 
 pests enjoy complete immunity from any penalty which 
 the ingenuity of man can devise. Swallows, nightjars, 
 and other birds take toll of the perfect insect, but the 
 life of the perfect insect is brief and harmless; it is 
 during the three years which the larvae spend under- 
 ground that they carry on their depredations, summer 
 and winter. 
 
 Where the mole has been exterminated, as in some 
 highly cultivated parts of France, the local authorities 
 have to grapple directly with these insect pests, and pay 
 rewards for their destruction. We have the authority 
 of M. Reiset for the statement that, in four years ending 
 in 1870, 867 million perfect cockchafers and 647 
 millions of their larvae were destroyed and paid for by 
 the authority of the Seine inferieure. 
 
 The European mole has its analogy in every quarter 
 of the globe all small, soft-furred, burrowing animals, 
 with tiny eyes, and possessed of extraordinary strength 
 in proportion to their size. 
 
 Foreign moles, though resembling in habits, and 
 sometimes in appearance ; our native Talpa, generally
 
 74 THE MOLE 
 
 belong to families far removed from the Talpidse. The 
 North American moles, indeed, the star-nosed (Condy- 
 lura) and shrew moles (Scalops and Scapanus), are 
 nearly related to the European species, but the curious 
 golden mole of South Africa must be classed among 
 the Chrysochloridce, and there are moles in the eastern 
 Mediterranean region, in Asia and South Africa, belong- 
 ing to the family of rodents, and therefore related to 
 the beavers, guinea-pigs, rabbits, and rats. In Austral- 
 asia, where nearly all the placental types have their 
 counterpart in the marsupial or pouched forms of a 
 remote geological age, there has been discovered within 
 quite recent years the pouched mole (Notoryctes 
 typhlops), a little creature about six inches long, covered 
 with reddish fur. All these so-called moles exhibit in 
 their organisation a perfect adaptation of structure to 
 the peculiar mode of existence assigned to or adopted 
 by their race. 
 
 The geographical distribution of the British or 
 European mole is enormous, extending from England 
 to Japan, from the limits of frozen ground in Russia 
 and Scandinavia to the Mediterranean and the southern 
 aspect of the Himalayas, where it is actually found at 
 an elevation of 10,000 feet. It exists in every county 
 of England and Scotland, but, strange to say, it is alto- 
 gether absent from Ireland. Firmly convinced though I 
 am of its useful offices to agriculturists, I should hesitate 
 before risking the addition of another to the long list 
 of Irish grievances against Britain by introducing this 
 little quadruped into the Emerald Isle.
 
 MARCH 75 
 
 Our Anglo-Saxon forefathers were very fanciful in 
 their leechcraft ; some of their prescriptions were dis- 
 gustingly filthy, others were exceedingly cruel, and 
 some were grotesque. It is curious that the mysterious 
 and clandestine habits of the mole did not suggest to 
 them to employ it in medicine more frequently than 
 they did. In fact, this animal only appears once in the 
 principal leech book which has been preserved, namely, 
 in that of Alfric, written by the penman Gild in the 
 tenth century. Here it is recommended to one suffer- 
 ing from ' wamb wark,' i.e. bowel complaint, or, perhaps, 
 simple stomach-ache, that he watch till he sees a mole 
 casting up earth, then ' catch him with thy two hands 
 along with his casting up and say thrice: Remedium 
 facio ad ventris dolor em (I make this a remedy for 
 my stomach-ache); throw the animal away over thy 
 back ; take care thou look not after it,' and the pain 
 will depart. Perhaps the leech wrote this tongue in 
 cheek, well knowing how powerful is the impression 
 made on a patient's mind by an unusual action per- 
 emptorily enforced and performed in full. 
 
 Of all vertebrate creatures, the mole is probably the 
 most powerful in proportion to his size : so, at least, a 
 certain Welsh mole-catcher assured a friend of mine : 
 who, suspecting that professional zeal might have led 
 this craftsman to form an exaggerated notion of the 
 qualities of his special quarry, asked him how that 
 could be proved. He cited his experience of an in- 
 teresting but rather ghastly experiment. An able- 
 bodied live mole, harnessed to the corpses of two of
 
 76 A BLANK DAY'S FISHING 
 
 his brethren, dragged them about with ease ; two more 
 were added, with little difference in the result. Succes- 
 sive corpses were attached to the load, to the total of 
 eight, until the ninth brought the creature to a stand- 
 still. Imagine the prodigious muscular energy enabling 
 an animal to drag eight times its own weight not on 
 wheels, mark you, but along the ground. It is doubtful 
 if the strongest Clydesdale horse could drag more than 
 a pair of his fellows in size along a road, and an 
 elephant certainly could not do as much. To match 
 the strength of the mole one must go to the insect 
 kingdom. 
 
 XXII 
 
 Among the points of superiority over other field-sports 
 
 claimed for angling by the devotees of that 
 A blank 
 day's fish- ancient craft, is the fact that even a blank 
 
 day is not wholly devoid of solace. The 
 same may be said of fox-hunting : there is always the 
 ' coffee-house ' chatter and other sources of subsidiary 
 recreation the salutary pleasure of equitation, the 
 opportunity for larking over unnecessary fences, the 
 display of the very finest specimens of horse and 
 hound, and perhaps, if you are in luck, and know how 
 to seize opportunity, a ride home in the gloaming by 
 the off-side of a side-saddle. But of what other sport 
 can it be held that a blank day is other than a de- 
 pressing disaster unmitigated by any ray of consola- 
 tion ? Who cares to reflect on a day's deer-stalking
 
 London. Edw*r4 Arnold. 1900 .
 
 MAECH 77 
 
 without a shot, and what could be more doleful than 
 an abortive battue ? But with angling especially 
 salmon angling it is slightly different. The pursuit 
 of salmon leads a man into the most varied and 
 attractive scenery, because the beauty of every country 
 is invariably concentrated on the banks of its river, 
 and the most dismal land generally reveals some charm 
 by the waterside. It may be even possible to recount 
 the incidents of a blank day's fishing without being 
 tedious ; at all events, it is not preposterous to make 
 the attempt. 
 
 The night mail set down a fugitive from London at 
 a wayside station in the south-west of Scotland about 
 half-an-hour before sunrise on a March morning. The 
 air was mild as May, the wet streets of the little town 
 were deserted ; for what should lead people abroad at 
 that hour if it were not to listen to the orchestra of 
 blackbirds and thrushes, to which every villa garden 
 seemed to contribute a performer ? There are those 
 who extol the song of the mavis above that of the 
 merle; no doubt it is more varied, and includes a 
 greater compass of notes ; but surely there is nothing 
 in the lavish melody of the thrush to equal the rich 
 flute-like tones of the less voluble blackbird. 
 
 But behind and beyond the song of birds, there was 
 a sound in the air of more moment to the fisherman^- 
 the low roar of the river, chafing at the 'cauld' 
 Anglice, weir. There is no want of water this spring 
 (1897); unlike the last four seasons, this has been a 
 'dropping ' one ; what matter though farmers are getting
 
 78 A BLANK DAY'S FISHING 
 
 fidgety about their seedtime, provided there is plenty of 
 running water to take fish into the upper reaches ? It 
 is the time of year when, for some privy reason, salmon 
 begin to leave the tide, and seek the pools where, from 
 immemorial time, they choose to swelter through the 
 summer heats. There are good tidings of them, too ; 
 yesterday a gamekeeper killed two springers a dozen 
 miles from the sea. Of a surety business will be done 
 to-day, for the water is in perfect trim for the fly. 
 
 The Cree is the scene of operations, which, among 
 other charms, possesses that of being four hundred 
 miles from London. It is formed by the confluence of 
 two streams about eight miles above the tide; the 
 smaller of these, the Cree proper, strained from leagues 
 of barren moss and moor, is dark with the gloom of a 
 brown Cairngorm ; the other and larger the Minnick 
 poured from lakes stored in the recesses of the 
 southern uplands is pure and clear as any Hampshire 
 chalk stream. It was in the Minnick that the two fish 
 were caught yesterday, and the ' machine ' is ready at 
 eight o'clock to convey to its banks the sportsman, 
 feverishly impatient. 
 
 The drive through the still morning air is worth 
 coming all the way from London to enjoy. All round 
 the northern and eastern horizon are piled the summits 
 of that range which, to the indignation of certain of its 
 inhabitants, railway companies advertise nowadays as 
 ' Crockett's Country/ Snow still hangs on the crests 
 and lingers in the corries, and the glens are filled with 
 the far-off sound of falling waters. The road along the
 
 MAECH 79 
 
 east bank is a veritable switchback now flinging itself 
 upon the face of a rocky bluff now falling plump to 
 the level of the river beside which it runs. The 
 morning sun lights the oak copse into golden russet and 
 silver of indescribable delicacy, with delicious verdure 
 of velvet moss ; but there is no trace of spring there, 
 except in the tasselled hazel and in the scattered 
 rosettes of wood hyacinth leaves, where will be a cloud 
 of blue blossoms in their season. Among scattered 
 birches by the river many blackcock are congregated, 
 going through the grotesque antics appropriate to the 
 time of courtship. Blackcocks alone not a grey hen 
 is to be seen, for these only visit their lords at stated 
 hours. The rest of the day is spent by the cocks in 
 strutting, drumming, puffing themselves out ridicu- 
 lously, nibbling birch buds and young clover in the 
 sown grass, and cooing as amorously as any turtle- 
 dove. 
 
 There is plenty to occupy eye and ear till the chosen 
 scene of operations is reached, than which no salmon 
 fisher could desire a more lovely theatre. For more 
 than a mile the river runs a tumultuous course among 
 cliffs and boulders ; there is not a yard of still water in 
 the whole of it, but experience has proved the invincible 
 attraction for spring fish possessed by certain lodges in 
 this torrent. Were it not that salmon are notoriously 
 indifferent to their terrestrial surroundings (being as 
 much addicted to the most commonplace resorts, such 
 as the well-known cast in the middle of the town of 
 Galway, as to the most romantic gorges), one would be
 
 80 A BLANK DAY'S FISHING 
 
 tempted to assign the beauty of this part of the river 
 as the secret of the favour shown to it by early fish. 
 The amphitheatre of blue, snow-streaked hills the 
 brown heath broken with grey crag and tufted with 
 oak, birch, and holly the solitude the space the 
 historic associations (for here were enacted some of the 
 most stirring episodes in the career of Kobert the 
 Bruce) all these so greatly enhance the angler's 
 enjoyment that it is hard to believe, as one must, that 
 they have no attraction for the fish which resort to this 
 beautiful strath. 
 
 On this occasion, apparently, they have not resorted 
 thither. Over every yard of water in that beat which 
 might hold a salmon, the fly is worked diligently ; it is 
 a day whereon, if fish were there, they could not refuse 
 to rise, so perfect are the conditions of water, wind, and 
 sky ; not even a kelt shows, for this is no place where 
 kelts may loiter. Sorrowfully it is decided to fall back 
 on a beat in the main river, where, at least, if the sport 
 is not so pretty, it is more sure. The trap is sent for, 
 and a move is made to a certain infallible cast known 
 as Cunninghame's Ford. It is not a ford at all ; it gets 
 its name from the ignoble end of a farmer named 
 Cunninghame, who, having indulged too freely hi 
 market-day potations, took the wrong road from 
 Newton Stewart, and found himself on the opposite 
 bank of the river from his own house. Full of Dutch 
 courage, he resolved to make a ford where ford there 
 was none ; he drove his horse into the water and was 
 drowned. For a mile above and below this celebrated 

 
 MARCH 81 
 
 cast the river is like a huge canal, and gives no sport ; 
 here, with a breeze, one is pretty sure to see some- 
 thing. There is a lovely ripple to-day, and a good-sized 
 ' Dandy ' is sent on its mission with a confident hand. 
 There ! at the third cast a good splashing rise and a 
 tight line. Alas! there is also that unmistakable 
 'figure-of-eight' wriggle which so surely betokens the 
 kelt. A kelt it is; another and another follows, till 
 four have been returned to the wave ; but clearly there 
 are no sea fish here to-day. 
 
 At length, with aching back and arms, such as come 
 of wielding an eighteen-foot greenheart for eight hours, 
 the angler stands beside the last, and not the worst, 
 cast within his beat. A wide, strong stream pours 
 into a broad swirling pool of the dimensions of a little 
 lake. Just where the current runs into a rippling 
 point is one of the most ' smittle ' places for a spring 
 salmon in the whole of the Cree. But to get the fly 
 over that point requires long and difficult wading, for 
 the stream is strong and the bottom very rough. 
 Three times in succession the journey has to be made ; 
 for three times, just as the large ' Beryl ' comes over 
 the right place, it is seized by a dirty kelt which has 
 to be dragged ashore. A fourth time the fly is taken 
 hurrah ! this is a fish of the right kind ; the reel runs 
 merrily as he dashes down into the broad stream. 
 None of your figure-of-eight exercise this time, but the 
 solid weight and powerful digs of a strong salmon. 
 Never let us despair in salmon-fishing ; the last hour 
 of daylight how often has it proved the deadliest and
 
 82 A BLANK DAY'S FISHING 
 
 saved a blank ! Such are the ecstatic reflections of the 
 angler as he picks his precarious way ashore; then, 
 standing safely on firm land, he turns to deal severely 
 with his captive. ' Och bubbaboo ! ' as an Irish fisher 
 would say, ' what 's that ? ' The fish flings itself out of 
 the water, revealing the unlovely proportions of a great 
 kelt, hooked by the outside. Down with the rod ; hand- 
 line the brute ashore, and you may be forgiven the use of 
 a short but emphatic monosyllable, provided it has not 
 been employed earlier in this long day of hope deferred. 
 
 Well, it has been a blank day, but it has left the 
 sweet memory of mountain and flood, of drifting cloud 
 and sighing breeze, of delicious nerve-tinglings set 
 astir by the pulls of fish which might have been clean ; 
 and all these are in pleasing contrast to the routine of 
 division bells and committee rooms. Besides, is there 
 not balm in Gilead ? Is not this Saturday night, when 
 all netting at the river mouth is suspended till six on 
 Monday morning? If the thirty-six hours of close 
 time do not admit some fish to the angling waters, 
 salmon must be passing scarce on the coast. 
 
 What a host of circumstances the salmon angler has 
 to contend with! Monday morning, indeed, dawns 
 upon a river in trim to gratify the most fastidious 
 wight that ever cast a fly, but a deluge of rain is 
 falling, and it is as certain as that the sun, which has 
 just risen, will set about six o'clock, that within three 
 or four hours ' she ' will be down in roaring spate. And 
 it so happens ; there is only time to fly to half-a-dozen 
 of the best places, haul out some ugly kelts, and just
 
 MARCH 83 
 
 reward for all this terrible anxiety extract one lovely 
 little springer of nine pounds from behind a rocky 
 ledge in the rapids, and then all is over for this day. 
 The flood comes tumbling down, filling the channel 
 from bank to brae ; there is nothing for it but to repair 
 to the hostelry of Newton Stewart, and fill the idle 
 hours till the night mail for London is due by recording 
 impressions of delights too pure to be committed to 
 oblivion. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 He that hath two cakes of bread,' quoth Mahomet, 
 ' let him sell one of them and buy flowers of When 
 narcissus ; for bread is but food for the body, JJJ^Jfto 8 
 but narcissus is nourishment for the soul.' peer 
 The pundits have endeavoured with very indifferent 
 success, as some think to prove that neither the flower 
 by which the Prophet of Islam set much store, nor 
 Homer's vdpKia-a-os, is to be identified with any species 
 of the genus named Narcissus by modern botanists. 
 Seeing, however, what slippery things plant names are, 
 how they are shifted from one flower to another in the 
 course of generations (what we know as wallflower was 
 the heart's-ease and Viola of early English writers), 
 little weight can be attached to the nomenclature of 
 different periods. Many kinds of what we know as 
 narcissus abound in Asia Minor, conspicuous among 
 all flowers both for beauty and fragrance, and more 
 likely than most others to have delighted both the 
 poet and the prophet.
 
 84 WHEN DAFFODILS BEGIN TO PEER 
 
 But Lenten lilies the glory at this season of our 
 lawns and cool northern pastures though near of kin 
 to the Asiatic kinds, are connected with the East only 
 by their name. Daffodil, embroidered by Spenser into 
 daffadowndilly, came to us through the old French 
 asphodile, from the Greek ao-<oSeXo5, and here again 
 we are in risk of controversy as to what the asphodel 
 really was. Perhaps in future ages, when the flow of 
 English literature has been dried up, Japanese wise- 
 acres will puzzle their brains over the exact plant 
 meant by the daffodil, which has had such a fascination 
 for English poets from Shakespeare to Keats. Mean- 
 while it is ours to enjoy it as perhaps the most beautiful 
 of our native wild flowers. 
 
 It has other qualities besides beauty to endear it. 
 It ' comes before the swallows dare ' ; not fastidious 
 about soil or culture (magna cura non indigent 
 narcissi, says an early English authority), it only re- 
 quires to be planted and left at liberty, and it enjoys 
 the constitution of a coltsfoot ; for, although the race 
 has its peculiar foe a fly (Crioceris narcissi) of which 
 the maggot makes the bulb its exclusive diet this only 
 prevails in hot climates and dry soils ; in our northern 
 latitudes it is almost unknown. Hence, though in 
 Britain it is probably only a true native of some of the 
 southern and midland counties, the common daffodil 
 (Narcissus pseudo-narcissus) has established itself 
 firmly all over the land, as far north as Caithness and 
 as far west as Connemara. Nowhere can it be seen in 
 greater profusion than in Lakeland, where Wordsworth
 
 MARCH 85 
 
 celebrated its charms. In Westmorland there are 
 literally leagues of it slender lines of skirmishers by 
 the waysides clustered companies in green rocky nooks 
 whole brigades in hanging oak copse. 
 
 Only in one respect does the English daffodil fail to 
 rival most others of the family it is scentless. 
 
 It is a true child of the field and the wood, never to 
 be seen in perfection in parterres. Much used for 
 spring decoration of London parks, it shows to dis- 
 advantage there, because, owing to annual removal, it 
 has not time to grow into those crowded clumps which 
 send up such splendid wealth of gold near manors 
 and farmhouses. For park ornament, some of the 
 dashing hybrids, such as the ingenuity of florists has 
 produced of late years, are better suited. The best of 
 these quite eclipse the old daffodil in stature and 
 individual magnificence, and the annual show held by 
 the Narcissus committee of the Royal Horticultural 
 Society is one of the most charming entertainments 
 which London affords. Yet, even there, only one flower 
 shakes one's allegiance to the native beauty, and that, 
 on inquiry, turns out to be no foreigner, but a variety 
 of our own daffodil, larger in all its parts, and with the 
 outer divisions of the perianth not yellow, but snowy 
 white (N. pseudo-narcissus bicolor). 
 
 Most of our native 'worts' were pressed into the 
 service of primitive leechcraft ; yet although the name 
 narcissus is formed from the Greek vdptcr), a narcotic, 
 an Anglo-Saxon manuscript of the tenth century con- 
 tains only one mention of the daffodil. The bulbs of
 
 86 WHEN DAFFODILS BEGIN TO PEER 
 
 the 'halswort' or narcissus are to be pounded with 
 oil and meal, which, used as a poultice, ' healeth 
 wonderfully the wounds which are produced on 
 man.' Yet this plant must have some potent pro- 
 perty of which we wot not, else how comes it that 
 the almost omnivorous rabbit, which disdaineth not, 
 but greatly coveteth the kindred crocus, will not touch 
 the daffodil ? 
 
 One other native narcissus we may reckon, indigen- 
 ous to Ireland and southern England, inferior in 
 profusion and beauty to the other, but diffusing a 
 delicious fragrance 'a sweet but stuffing scent,' says 
 the fastidious Parkinson. This is the twin-flowered 
 narcissus or ' primrose peerless ' (N. biflorus), whereof 
 the perianth is cream-coloured and yellow. 
 
 Others there are from foreign climes which adapt 
 themselves bravely to our soil and climate, propagating 
 themselves through woodland and meadow. Of these 
 the nonpareil (N. incomparabilis) in almost countless 
 variety, single and double, begins before the common 
 daffodil fades, of which the double form goes by the 
 homely name of ' butter-and-eggs ' ; the jonquil (a corrup- 
 tion of its specific name juncifolius rush-leaved) and 
 the campernelle (N. odorus) rival each other in fra- 
 grance ; until, latest of all, and perhaps most lovely of 
 all, comes the poet's narcissus or pheasant eye (N. 
 poeticus), of spotless white with crimson or scarlet cup. 
 This seems to be the purple narcissus of Dioscorides 
 and Virgil, which modern critics have boggled over, 
 seeing that white and gold, not purple, are the distin-
 
 MARCH 87 
 
 guishing livery of the family. But the allusion here is 
 to the carmine centre. 
 
 By the time, however, that the poet's narcissus is in 
 bloom, there is so much competing wealth of colour and 
 greenery that it scarcely gets its due tribute, and it is 
 the daffodil of March the true Lenten lily that Keats 
 has wedded with a praise long since threadbare : 
 
 A thing of beauty is a joy for ever, 
 .... and such are daffodils 
 With the green world they live in. 
 
 Shall I wind up this tribute to the chief glory of our 
 early springtide by recounting the evil deed of a 
 Scottish country minister. It may be done harmlessly, 
 both he and his wife having taken flight to the meads 
 of asphodel. In the manse grounds and kirkyard was 
 great store of daffodils an annual delight to church- 
 goers. One Sabbath in a far-off March I was smitten 
 with dismay to find that the scythe had been busy 
 among the plants just about to burst into bloom. 
 They lay in dismal swathes upon the lawn and among 
 the graves. After the service I expressed my feelings 
 to the minister in terms of some vehemence. ' Oh,' 
 quoth he, ' it was done by my orders. My wife dislikes 
 yellow ; she considers it a vulgar colour ! ' 
 
 XXIV 
 
 Field for interesting speculation is opened up by the 
 republic ation, in his admirable volume Pre- saurian 
 historic Problems, 1 of Dr. Munro's presidential bipeds 
 address to the Anthropological Section of the British 
 
 1 Edinburgh : Blackwood and Sons. 1897.
 
 88 SAURIAN BIPEDS 
 
 Association in 1893. In this paper the learned doctor 
 deals with the erect posture of man, which, unique as 
 it is among vertebrates, he regards as being one of 
 the main factors hi the intellectual supremacy of the 
 human race. No other animal, he points out, has 
 ever succeeded in completely divesting its anterior 
 limbs of their primary functions of support and loco- 
 motion, thereby setting them free for manipulative 
 and prehensile purposes. The development of the 
 human hand out of a fore-foot, until it became the 
 most perfect mechanical organ hitherto produced by 
 nature, stimulated, and, in turn, was quickened by, 
 the mental faculties. 'From the first moment,' says 
 Dr. Munro, ' that the being recognised the advantage 
 of using a club or a stone in attacking his prey, or de- 
 fending himself from his enemies, the direct incentives to 
 a higher brain-development came into existence.' The 
 selection of the kind of stone best adapted for cutting 
 purposes required a mental act just as deliberate as the 
 construction of a typewriter or the application of 
 electricity : hand and brain reacted one upon the other, 
 mutually stimulating each other to processes of thought 
 and to action, ever becoming more complex and better 
 sustained. 
 
 Now, this is no place to inquire closely into the 
 validity of Dr. Munro's proposition, involving as it 
 does the whole question between exoteric or inspired 
 intelligence and esoteric mental evolution. But a 
 recent visit to the Natural History Museum at Brussels, 
 and inspection of the skeletons of the gigantic saurians
 
 MARCH 89 
 
 discovered in recent years in the coal measures of 
 Bernissart, have suggested some curious thoughts in 
 relation to the importance attached by Dr. Munro to 
 the erect attitude as the primary cause of intellectual 
 growth, and the consequent ascendency of man. We 
 owe the preservation of these mighty lizards to what 
 might be called irreverently a stratigraphic fluke. In 
 Britain, only scattered bones of the iguanodon have 
 been found. The beasts have been there, as their 
 numerous footmarks in the Sussex weald attest, but 
 when they perished the conditions were not favourable 
 to their repose ; floods, ice, and tides have dispersed the 
 remains far and wide. But it was otherwise at Ber- 
 nissart. Here a torrent of the Wealden age, having cut 
 a valley nearly nine hundred feet deep through the car- 
 boniferous rocks, afterwards, owing to some alterations 
 in levels or physical obstruction, took to meandering 
 sluggishly between oozy shores. Every animal that 
 perished in the stream or on its banks remained where 
 it died, and was wrapped in alluvium. In long process 
 of time this Wealden alluvium filled up the whole 
 valley, and became overlaid with a series of cretaceous 
 beds. Its contents remained undisturbed through ages, 
 until in the present restless century it was penetrated 
 by Belgian colliers, who laid bare a well-furnished 
 museum of the peculiar Wealden marsh fauna. 
 
 By far the most remarkable of the remains discovered 
 were those of the iguanodon, of which species twenty- 
 five individuals were found at a depth of about one 
 thousand feet below the present earth surface. Thanks
 
 90 SAURIAN BIPEDS 
 
 to the gentle movement of the Wealden river, hardly 
 a bone was missing in some of the skeletons. A cast of 
 a complete skeleton has been set up in our own 
 museum at South Kensington. All the specimens 
 recovered from the Bernissart pits are those of adults, 
 some of them attaining the length of thirty-four feet 
 from nose to tail-tip. 
 
 A group of these, occupying the centre of a large 
 room in the Brussels Museum, gives a startling im- 
 pression of the scale of the Wealden fauna. But what 
 impresses the imagination most forcibly is that these 
 animals are supported entirely on their hind legs. One 
 asks at once what reason there can be for assuming 
 them to have been bipeds. Apparently the answer to 
 this question ought to be convincing. While the fore- 
 feet have five fingers, the hind-feet have but three toes, 
 and the footprints, of which abundance has been pre- 
 served, are exclusively three-toed impressions. With 
 the occurrence of these -in British beds geologists have 
 been long familiar, though at one time their origin was 
 attributed to a large bird. But the mystery is solved 
 by the discovery of the real authors of them. The 
 iguanodon, then, was an enormous saurian, walking 
 as nearly erect as was possible for an animal which 
 had to carry a huge tail clear of the ground, and with 
 its anterior limbs, relieved from the functions of loco- 
 motion and support, free for the use of the five-fingered 
 hands at the end of them. 
 
 Here, then, is very nearly the fulfilment of the erect 
 attitude and freedom of the anterior limbs postulated by
 
 MARCH 91 
 
 Dr. Munro for extraordinary mental development. The 
 posture of the iguanodon, indeed, was not absolutely 
 erect; but, at all events, the hands were perfectly at 
 liberty to serve as ministers to the brain, at once 
 stimulating that organ to speculation and structurally 
 adapting themselves to its mandates. Are we free 
 to believe that, had terrestrial conditions remained 
 favourable to the maintenance of a vigorous saurian 
 population, lizards would have attained to the lordship 
 of creation now exercised by man ? That seems to be 
 suggested by the speculations of Dr. Munro, at all 
 events. A prehistoric peep at society under a lacer- 
 tilian monarchy affords a promising subject for the 
 pencil of ingenious Mr. Keed. 
 
 Nothing is more remarkable than the way in which 
 facts fit into their right places under a thorough system 
 of comparative research. Not many years ago few 
 things would have seemed less likely to biologists than 
 that lizards with long bodies and tails, and short, weak 
 limbs, should resort to bi-pedal locomotion. But it is 
 now known that the frilled lizard (Chlamydosaurus 
 Kingi} of tropical Australia does so. Living specimens 
 of this curious creature might have been seen recently 
 in the Zoological Gardens (perhaps they are there 
 still) which afforded ample demonstration that, though 
 moving at ordinary times as quadrupeds, when they 
 are in a hurry they run as a cricketer does between the 
 wickets. The tail is carried clear of the ground, and 
 the anterior limbs are free, just as the iguanodon used 
 to carry them. Now Australia is full of archaic forms
 
 92 SAURIAN BIPEDS 
 
 of life, survivals of a fauna of Mesozoic type. The 
 lacertilian race, as we know them, have greatly de- 
 clined from their pristine exuberance. It is possible 
 that in this unique habit of Chlamydosaurus we have a 
 hereditary trait of a remote ancestry ; though, on the 
 other hand, it may have been a faculty independently 
 developed in a single species. 
 
 Talking of the erect attitude, has anybody ever seen 
 a grebe or a diver (Colymbus) in the conventional 
 attitude assigned to these birds by artists and taxi- 
 dermists ? They are usually represented sitting or 
 standing erect on dry land like an auk or guillemot ; 
 but Mr. Abel Chapman declares that it would be 
 impossible for this attitude to be assumed in life, 
 owing to the peculiar formation of the tarsus and 
 metatarsal joints. In his recent admirable book on 
 Wild Norway 1 he describes how he tried in vain to 
 cause the feet of a newly-killed black-throated diver to 
 bend forward sufficiently for standing on ; and elsewhere 
 he mentions that Mr. Cullingford, the bird-stuffer of 
 Durham, always has to break the bones of the feet of 
 grebes and divers, in order to set them up as people 
 like them. Mr. Chapman believes that neither divers 
 nor grebes ever go ashore, except to get to their nests, 
 which are always very near the water, and that then 
 they scramble along on their breasts, with legs and 
 wings propelling them, after the manner of a seal. 
 Unless proof can be shown that they can and do sit 
 erect, most of the representations of birds of these two 
 
 1 London : Edward Arnold. 1897.
 
 MARCH 93 
 
 families must be considered as absurd as an illustration 
 of an ostrich soaring in mid-air or a swallow swimming 
 across a stream. Divers and grebes do not sit up on 
 end like auks, not from any prejudice on their part for 
 a horizontal attitude, but because they cannot. When 
 the ancient affinity of birds and reptiles is remembered, 
 the importance of representing each in their true atti- 
 tudes will be recognised as important. 
 
 XXV 
 
 To mention big game in these days is to waken melan- 
 choly reflections. Mr. H. A. Bryden has 
 
 Alas! for 
 
 lately harrowed our feelings by describing 
 
 the extinction of some beautiful races and 
 foretelling the speedy extermination of others. 1 For 
 instance, of the four species of zebra, the quagga was 
 the most powerful and horse-like. Half a century 
 ago it roamed the plains of Cape Colony, the Orange 
 Free State, and part of Griqualand in countless 
 thousands. It is now extinct, and the only memorial 
 of it in this country is a single battered skin in the 
 Natural History Museum at South Kensington. 
 
 ' Never again will the traveller view its strange single-file 
 march silhouetted against the distant sky-line. The quagga, 
 that for many a thousand years decorated these primeval 
 wilds and untrodden deserts, has clean vanished, never to 
 return recklessly destroyed by the short-sighted policy of 
 the skin-hunting Boers of the last generation.' 
 
 1 Nature and Sport in South Africa. By H. A. Bryden. Chapman 
 and Hall.
 
 94 ALAS ! FOR THE BIG GAME 
 
 The true or mountain zebra the Hippotigris of 
 Roman writers has become very scarce from persecu- 
 tion. 
 
 ' Within thirty years it will probably have vanished, and 
 another noble form of animal life will be lost to us. ... 
 The zebra is invariably a picture of grace and beauty, a 
 perfect type of feral life.' 
 
 The bontebok or pied antelope, one of the noblest 
 of African game, was described by Cornwallis Harris 
 in 1837 as swarming south of the Vaal River in such 
 immense herds that ' the road made by their incessant 
 tramp resembled so many well-travelled highways.' 
 Now the race is represented by a small number pre- 
 served by the families of Van Breda and Van der 
 Byl (their names merit honourable record), and even 
 these, it is feared, will scarcely survive into the 
 twentieth century, owing to the debilitating effect of 
 inbreeding. 1 
 
 The white rhinoceros the largest terrestrial mammal 
 after the elephant, according to Mr. Bryden, who, 
 perhaps, excludes the hippopotamus as an amphibian 
 is in the last throes of extinction. Six specimens 
 were shot between the Black and White Umvolosi 
 rivers in 1894, and it is doubtful if any remain alive. 
 Fifty years ago Gordon Gumming and others used 
 to pot sixty or eighty in a season by night at the 
 drinking places. 
 
 1 This was written before the outbreak of the late war, the effect of 
 which upon the wild animals of South Africa may be the subject of 
 apprehension, but not of calculation.
 
 MARCH 95 
 
 The eland, to which hunters give the palm as the 
 most splendid of all antelopes, is vanishing fast. Game 
 laws, it is true, have been enacted for the protection 
 of these and other of the fauna of Bechuanaland, but 
 who is to enforce them in that wild country ? Even 
 if the Bechuanas (who are worse than the Boers, 
 inasmuch as they slaughter game heavy with young, 
 or with young at foot) could be restrained, who is to 
 stop the inroads of hunting Namaquas ? But it is vain 
 to lay all the blame on the black man. The craze for 
 big game makes the English traveller, with his express 
 rifles and countless resources for traversing unwatered 
 regions, as murderous as the native. Saddest of all 
 chronicles is that of the beautiful giraffe 
 
 'The sight of a troop of giraffes browsing peacefully in 
 their native acacia forests, reaching with upstretched neck 
 and extended tongue at some green succuleut leafage far 
 up in the spreading learned-doom tree, is one of the most 
 beautiful things in nature. No man that has seen such a 
 spectacle is ever likely to forget it. ... Although I have 
 set eyes on many rare and beautiful things in the African 
 wilderness, that most fascinating revelation of wild animal 
 life will never fade from memory.' 
 
 Let us hope Mr. Bryden's finger did not itch for 
 the trigger. One doesn't quite trust him, so fondly 
 does he linger in the previous page over the delicacy 
 of giraffe marrow, in bones three feet long 'the 
 greatest luxury of its kind in the world.' Well, the 
 world will have to go without this luxury soon, it 
 seems ; well would it be if this were the sum of the
 
 96 ALAS ! FOR THE BIG GAME 
 
 loss. There are so few giraffes left that one feels no 
 gratitude to the author for his elaborate instructions 
 how to ride these animals down. 
 
 The elephant has practically disappeared from Lake 
 Ngami. Within two years of the discovery of this 
 lake by Livingstone nine hundred elephants were 
 slaughtered on its shores. Later, some Boer hunters 
 drove a herd of one hundred and four into a marsh 
 and butchered every one of them before set of sun. 
 Carnage on this scale can never be repeated. II n'y 
 a pas de quoi. Will the British Government and the 
 Chartered Company not combine to make a great 
 sanctuary of some 100,000 acres in Mashonaland, and 
 so protect us from the execration of posterity for 
 permitting the extirpation of some of the grandest of 
 living creatures ?
 
 XXVI 
 
 IT suggests a sorrowful reflection on our civilisation 
 that, at this time of day, after ornithological 
 writers have been pleading the cause of the 
 owl for many years, it should be necessary to repel 
 objections to that bird and its various species being 
 included in the list of farmers' friends. There was 
 more reason for misunderstanding the true nature of 
 owls in the days when the systematists classed them 
 as a family of the order of Accipitres or Hawks; but 
 now that the opinion has been generally accepted that 
 they form a group of higher rank by themselves, their 
 superficial resemblance to the ill-famed hawks ought 
 to create no prejudice against them, or, at least, against 
 those species which hunt exclusively by night. But a 
 great deal of such prejudice remains to be overcome, 
 especially among game preservers and their keepers; 
 of which abundant evidence may be had by inspecting 
 the collections of ' vermin ' which are nailed up outside 
 the houses of many gamekeepers. There is pretty sure 
 to be an owl or two among the hawks, jays, and weasels. 
 Farmers, it is true, are not generally actively hostile 
 G
 
 98 OWLS 
 
 to owls, but they are usually indifferent to their pre- 
 sence or absence. If they knew their own interests, 
 they would take every means in their power to en- 
 courage these birds, and for the following reasons : 
 
 Owls, most of them all of those, indeed, which 
 occur frequently in this country are solitary noc- 
 turnal hunters, and their structure has been beautifully 
 specialised for that vocation. The plumage is soft and 
 velvety, rendering the flight noiseless, in strange con- 
 trast to the whirring of a cock pheasant, which warns 
 his harem to lie low in the presence of danger, or the 
 whistling wings of most of the duck tribe, the sound 
 of which enables a number of them flying through the 
 darkness to keep company with each other. On the 
 other hand, the ear of the owl is developed in an 
 extraordinary degree, so important it is that he should 
 hear the slightest rustle or chirp of crouching mouse. 
 The long-eared and short-eared owls are named, not 
 from their ears at all, but from the horn-like tufts of 
 feathers on the head ; nevertheless, their true ears are 
 very remarkable, the conch being enormously exagger- 
 ated and furnished with an operculum. But the most 
 extraordinary feature in the ears of these owls is that 
 they are not perfect pairs the orifice opens upwards 
 on one side of the head and downwards on the other, 
 so that the smallest sound may be heard from what- 
 ever direction it proceeds. In some species this want 
 of symmetry extends inwards to several of the bones 
 of the head. Then the eyes afford another instance of 
 special adaptation for night work, the pupil being
 
 APRIL 99 
 
 greatly dilated, so as to catch the slightest ray of light, 
 which causes the bird to be purblind in daylight. 
 Lastly, nearly all owls have a peculiarity in their outer 
 toes, which are reversible, and may be used either 
 backwards or forwards, a notable advantage in dealing 
 with a darting mouse. 
 
 Such being the special machinery with which this 
 bird of ravin is equipped, how does he use it ? Does 
 he prey on the farmer's young poultry or the game- 
 keeper's young pheasants ? I have not the slightest 
 doubt that if, and when, one of these comes in his 
 way, the owl will pounce on it and enjoy it mightily. 
 But young chicks are not, or ought not to be, abroad 
 in the night, which is the only time that most kinds of 
 owl can hunt ; indeed, at such times there is very little 
 moving abroad for him to catch except rats, mice, bats, 
 moles, and large beetles. So it came to pass when, a few 
 years ago, Dr. Altum, a German naturalist, set to work 
 to examine the pelts of owls (the indigestible parts of 
 its food which the bird has the power of disgorging 
 after the rest has been digested), he arrived at a result 
 which exactly coincides with what might have been 
 expected. First he reported on the tawny owl (Strix 
 stridula), known to everybody by his hooting the 
 species which gamekeepers will tell you bears the 
 worst reputation of all for poaching. Of this kind 
 Dr. Altum examined 210 pelts, which yielded the 
 remains of 1 stoat (let gamekeepers set that to Strix's 
 credit !), 6 rats, 371 mice, 48 moles, 18 small birds, and 
 many beetles and cockchafers. Still more remarkable
 
 100 OWLS 
 
 were the results of the examination of 706 pelts of the 
 white or barn owl (Strix flammea or Aluco flammeus), 
 a species equally common as the last in this country. 
 These were found to contain the remains of 16 bats, 
 3 rats, 2520 mice, 1 mole, and 22 small birds. 
 
 Now 706 pelts represent less than the product of 
 one pair of barn owls during a year. Does any one 
 in his senses mean to affirm that this pair of owls did 
 no important service to the farmer in devouring 2520 
 mice in that space of time ? 
 
 ' All right,' says the game preserver, ' we may consent 
 to respect those owls which hunt only by night, but 
 how about the woodcock owl, which may often be seen 
 hawking about the open moor by day ? Surely you 
 don't mean to tell me he is after no mischief ? ' 
 
 Well, I happen to have had particular occasion to 
 study the habits of this bird, and I was forced to the 
 conclusion that, although the short-eared owl (Asio 
 brachyotis) is more diurnal in his habits than those 
 mentioned above, and therefore is more likely than 
 they to strike young game, his services to agriculture 
 are no whit inferior. His daylight excursions and 
 yellow iris have earned for him the name of the hawk 
 owl, while he is often known as the woodcock owl, 
 because in normal seasons the species is nearly entirely 
 absent from the British Isles during the breeding 
 season, and reappears as a migrant about the same 
 time as the woodcock. In 1891-92 the extensive sheep 
 pastures on the southern uplands of Scotland were 
 devastated by one of those plagues of voles (Arvicola
 
 APKIL 101 
 
 arvalis) which have been known to recur at uncertain 
 intervals in various parts of the world. I w r as appointed 
 chairman of a departmental committee to inquire into 
 the extent and probable cause of the plague, and to 
 try and devise a remedy. We visited the infested 
 districts ; the hillsides swarmed with millions of voles ; 
 the grass over hundreds of thousands of acres was cut 
 at the roots by these animals, which make shallow 
 runs under the surface, and withered as if it had been 
 seared by passing fire ; the ewes were pining, dropping 
 their lambs prematurely, or suffering them to perish 
 for lack of milk. It was a melancholy scene. 
 
 One of the first abnormal features to attract our 
 attention was the presence of great numbers of short- 
 eared owls, which at that season are hardly ever seen 
 in Britain, being occupied with their nests in more 
 northern latitudes. However, during the two years 
 of the vole plague these birds, attracted by the pre- 
 sence of multitudes of voles, remained throughout the 
 year to batten on them. Not only so, but they nested 
 in numbers, and, stimulated by the abundant diet, laid 
 an abnormal number of eggs, and reared several suc- 
 cessive broods in each season. I do not mean to affirm 
 that they stemmed the plague, but no doubt can exist 
 that they helped to check it in no small degree. As 
 many as fifty short-eared owls might be seen on one 
 hillside ; and if these devoured no more than six voles 
 each in a day, that means a total of 109,500 in the 
 course of the year. 
 
 I think I have said enough to prove what valuable
 
 102 WILD BIKB PEOTECTION 
 
 auxiliaries to cultivators are the various species of 
 owls, and I can safely challenge anybody to produce 
 evidence of any counterbalancing injury that can be 
 justly laid to their charge. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 It is satisfactory to note that the International Confer- 
 wild Bird ence which assembled in Paris in 1895, on 
 Protection ^ i nv it a ti O n of the French Government, to 
 consider the best means of concerted action for the pro- 
 tection of birds useful to agriculture, is bearing some 
 fruit. The executive committee of the International 
 Exhibition about to open in Turin have come to the 
 wise decision to withhold all rewards from engines 
 designed for the capture of such birds. There is some 
 hope that a similar resolution may be adopted by the 
 Commissioners of the Exhibition to be held in Paris in 
 1900. This is well, for in no other country have insec- 
 tivorous birds been brought so near extinction as in 
 Italy and France. The Conference referred to was the 
 outcome of the conviction that, unless something was 
 done to arrest the process of extermination, insect pests 
 would shortly assume intolerable proportions. The 
 delegates, representing every country in Europe except 
 Turkey, where nobody thinks of slaughtering small 
 birds, had for its president the late Prime Minister, 
 M. Meline, and adopted a series of resolutions, nearly 
 all of which the British delegates had the gratification 
 of announcing as already in statutory force in these
 
 APRIL 103 
 
 islands. But that is not enough. Owing to the migra- 
 tory habits of nearly all birds, they have to run the 
 gauntlet of alert European chasseurs before they reach 
 the comparative sanctuary of a land where nothing but 
 what Frenchmen term gibier strieux are deemed worthy 
 of powder and shot. The regulations fall short of perfec- 
 tion even in this country ; but the acts for the protection 
 of wild birds other than game, passed in 1880, 1881, 
 1894, and 1896, have been long enough in force to 
 afford some idea of their efficacy and general effect. 
 This novel class of legislation was the outcome of a 
 variety of circumstances. The improvement and in- 
 creasing use of firearms, the strictness of game preser- 
 vation, the zeal for natural history which takes the 
 form of collecting specimens both of birds and their 
 eggs and last but not least, the encroachment of human 
 population and industry on the haunts of wild-fowl, 
 had rendered certain interesting species of birds exceed- 
 ingly rare, and threatened the complete extinction of 
 some of them. The great auk had disappeared for ever, 
 not only from the British list, but from the face of the 
 globe. Timely legislation might have saved the race 
 when, during the first half of this century, a few pairs 
 still lingered round the islands of St. Kilda and Papa 
 Westra, and when, as Audubon records, thousands of 
 nestlings were cut up annually for bait by the New- 
 foundland fishermen ; but it did not occur to anybody 
 to interfere, and the great auk the great awkward, as 
 it might have been fitly named will never be seen 
 again.
 
 104 WILD BIRD PROTECTION 
 
 When, in 1880, Sir John Lubbock (now Lord Ave- 
 bury) first induced the House of Commons to attend to 
 the grievances of our feathered fellow-creatures, he 
 found it far from unsympathetic. It is not on record 
 that any honourable member shed tears over the fate 
 of the great auk, but a distinct thrill ran through the 
 assembly when it was told that the black tern, the 
 avocet, the bittern, the great bustard, the black-tailed 
 godwit, and Savi's warbler, had already manifested 
 their disgust at the inhospitable treatment they had 
 received by ceasing to lay any eggs with us, and had 
 become so exceedingly rare, that individuals of these 
 species, alighting on their seasonal migration for ' a wash 
 and brush-up/ were relentlessly persecuted, and gener- 
 ally found their way into some local museum with an 
 obituary notice in the country paper. Sir John's Bill, 
 then, found an easy passage through all its stages, and 
 became the 'principal act/ of which subsequent acts 
 have been amendments and extensions. Appended to 
 it was a schedule, containing a list of wild birds for 
 which a close time was provided, protecting them 
 during the spring and summer months. 
 
 Perhaps the most notable general result of this Act 
 has been the increase of the common wild-duck. For- 
 merly, flapper-shooting the shooting of young ducks 
 as soon as they are able to fly was a recognised, though 
 inglorious form of sport ; and many persons persecuted 
 the helpless fowl for gain, finding a ready market for 
 them. Sir John Lubbock's close-time, extending from 
 March 15th to August 1st, practically put an end to
 
 APRIL 105 
 
 this industry, and wild-fowling was restricted to seasons 
 when these birds are among the wariest and swiftest of 
 feathered creatures. 
 
 Every bird, however, has to pass through the stage 
 of an egg, and of eggs the original act took no account 
 whatever. Now eggs, or rather egg-shells, owing to 
 their beauty, portability, and easy preservation, have 
 always been favourite objects of collection. They are 
 sought after not only by the managers of the zoological 
 museums, but they vie with butterflies and moths in 
 the esteem of multitudes of schoolboys. Consequently, 
 the trade of egg-collecting has become very brisk ; the 
 rarer the egg, the more diligent the search for it. Not 
 only so, but British collectors insist on being supplied 
 with British laid specimens. An egg is an egg, one 
 might think ; but no the egg of golden oriole or hoopoe 
 laid on the Continent may be had for a few pence ; it 
 is impossible to say how many guineas might be paid 
 for one certified to be taken in Britain. Kegularly 
 organised expeditions used to set out each spring from 
 our great towns to visit remote places on the coast 
 frequented by such birds as the great skua, of which 
 only a limited number of pairs remained in existence. 
 
 The act of 1894, therefore, was framed to give protec- 
 tion to the eggs of desirable species ; but inasmuch as 
 certain birds, though desirable in limited numbers, might 
 be undesirable in multitudes, this act, unlike the original 
 act, did not prescribe a uniform schedule for the whole 
 kingdom. Taking advantage of the recently formed 
 county councils, it empowered these local parliaments
 
 106 WILD BIRD PROTECTION 
 
 to make provision suitable to local circumstances, and 
 to obtain orders, on due reason shown, from the Secre- 
 tary of State, prohibiting the taking of eggs of specified 
 kinds of birds within their jurisdiction, or, if preferred, 
 the taking of all eggs within strictly denned areas. 
 Further elasticity was secured by provision for the 
 limited duration of such orders, which may be made to 
 run for one year or more. Power was also given to 
 extend the close- time provided in the act of 1880 to 
 any wild bird not included in the schedule thereof, and 
 to vary that close time to cover any part of the year, or 
 the whole of it. 
 
 County councils have availed themselves very exten- 
 sively of their optional powers under the act of 1894, 
 and already experience has proved the advantage of 
 the discretionary liberty accorded to them. In the 
 anxiety to protect interesting and vanishing species, 
 protection has been obtained for certain birds, which, 
 were they allowed to multiply unchecked, would become 
 a serious nuisance. Thus the county council of Suther- 
 land obtained an order prohibiting the slaughter of 
 golden eagles, which a few years ago had become 
 exceedingly rare. Already these noble birds have 
 increased to such an extent that sheep-farmers are 
 suffering loss in the matter of lambs. Had some per- 
 sons obtained their way in 1894, the killing of eagles 
 or taking their eggs would have been made penal 
 under an act applied uniformly to every county in the 
 kingdom, and until that act were repealed no redress 
 could have been had by those who suffered. As matters
 
 APKIL 107 
 
 stand, the local authority can arrange for its own needs ; 
 as soon as the order expires, eagles will be removed 
 from its protection, as well as ravens, peregrines, and 
 other birds of ravin, which may have become too 
 numerous. No reasonable person wants to have the 
 air darkened with destructive creatures; but most 
 people are interested in averting total extermination 
 from any bird in the British list, and the proper 
 machinery for this purpose seems to have been pro- 
 vided by Parliament. 
 
 One word as to the powers of county councils to 
 extend protection to any species throughout the year. 
 It is a power which, with one exception, ought to be 
 reserved for special cases, such as the hoopoe, oriole, 
 ruff, and reeve beautiful birds which come to our land 
 each year with the intention of breeding, but are no 
 sooner seen than they are shot without remorse. 
 
 The exception referred to is the lapwing or peewit. 
 It is one of the very few species of which we cannot 
 have too many, because of its unflagging industry in 
 destroying insects and molluscs on agricultural land. 
 It is incapable of doing injury to anybody, and withal 
 it is a lovely bird, and provides us with a prodigious 
 harvest of delicious eggs. Among all the fowls of the 
 air, there is not one to which the farmer ought to extend 
 a more cordial welcome, because, feeding as it does 
 exclusively on worms, insects, and molluscs, the presence 
 of a couple of hundred lapwings in a field means very 
 severe discipline among creeping pests. Dr. Bowdler 
 Sharpe quotes Mr. Read as having counted about 8000
 
 108 WILD BIRD PROTECTION 
 
 peewits in one field near Glasgow. Supposing each of 
 these took only a brace of grubs or slugs as a light 
 breakfast, who can estimate the value of their services ? 
 When they have depopulated the arable lands these 
 birds resort to the shore at low tide, where, if their 
 pursuits are not directly beneficial, they are at least 
 absolutely innocuous. 
 
 Besides its usefulness as a vermin catcher, the lapwing 
 earns our gratitude by the abundant supply of delicious 
 eggs which find their way to the market each spring. 
 Game preservers may be heard grumbling sometimes 
 because country folk are diligent in collecting plovers' 
 eggs. It is an unhandsome complaint; one ought rather 
 to be glad that so many are able to make a little profit 
 out of a harmless industry, and vary the monotony of 
 their lives by an agreeable pursuit. Nothing tends to 
 make the game laws more unpopular than a churlish 
 grudge against certain occupations, such as collecting 
 plovers' eggs and mushrooms, on the ground that dis- 
 honest people 'may take an unfair advantage if game 
 or their eggs happen to lie in their way. 
 
 A third reason why the lapwing ought to be treated 
 with special favour may be thought a sentimental one. 
 It is an exceedingly beautiful and graceful bird how 
 beautiful, its abundance is apt to make one forget. But 
 its glossy olive-green upper parts, shot with purple and 
 steel-blue on the scapulars and wing coverts, contrast 
 so brilliantly with the pure white breast and belly, and 
 harmonise so well with the rufous tail coverts, as to 
 make the peewit one of the chief ornaments of the
 
 APRIL 109 
 
 rural landscape. Then its jaunty crest, lustrous brown 
 eyes, rosy feet and legs, and lively movements, combine 
 to render it the handsomest of all British plovers. 
 
 It may be argued that, seeing lapwings are so abund- 
 ant in these isles, there can be no harm in shooting 
 them, especially as their flesh is quite wholesome and 
 tolerably palatable. Well, it must be admitted that, 
 although already far scarcer than formerly in some 
 districts, there is no sign of diminution in the numbers 
 of this species in others. Remember what has happened 
 to our ruffs and reeves not distantly related to lap- 
 wings. Once nesting abundantly in the eastern counties 
 of England, ruffs are scarcely known there now, except 
 as straggling passengers in autumn, so greedily have 
 they been persecuted. If it were desired to extirpate 
 a noxious kind of bird, the best way to set about it 
 would be to collect all the eggs possible in spring, and 
 shoot the parent bird during the rest of the year. This 
 is exactly what we are doing to the lapwings. Each 
 year a larger number of the adult birds are sent to the 
 London market, and may be seen in spring offered for 
 sale in the same shops with their eggs. 
 
 I write in the hope of enlisting the sympathy of 
 sportsmen, county council men, farmers, and all lovers 
 of Nature, in order that this senseless and inhuman 
 treatment may be stopped. It is senseless, because if 
 you kill the bird that lays the plovers' eggs, where will 
 you get your eggs? It is inhuman, because there is 
 not a single other species of wild bird of which civilised 
 man eats, and is allowed to offer for sale both parents
 
 110 WILD BIKD PROTECTION 
 
 and eggs. The remedy lies with county councils. Some 
 of these have proposed the prohibition of taking the 
 eggs. For the reasons given above, I should regret this. 
 If every egg laid in the British Isles in March and the 
 first fortnight in April were taken, plenty more would 
 be laid in second hatches to replenish the race, and these 
 would be protected by the growth of grass and young 
 corn. But I do advocate legislative protection to the 
 parent birds throughout the year, and the act of 1894 
 gives county councils power to obtain an order to this 
 effect from the Secretary of State. 
 
 What has saved the lapwing from extinction in these 
 islands hitherto is its migratory habit. Although in 
 most parts of Britain lapwings may be seen at all times 
 of the year, the birds that are with us in winter were 
 bred far north in Scandinavia, while those reared in 
 our own fields pass far south in winter. The lapwing is 
 the only bird known to me of which the exact northern 
 limit of the winter habitat may be traced in Great 
 Britain. It may be seen in the Moray Firth throughout 
 the year, but is not known in winter to the north of 
 the Helmsdale watershed. While, therefore, it is classed 
 as one of the resident species, it is, in fact, as truly 
 migratory as any other birds. The cuckoo and the 
 swallow pass southwards out of our ken in winter ; but 
 although the whole body of lapwings moves southward 
 also, the northern fringe of it lies across the south of 
 the county of Caithness. Spring returns, the homing 
 instinct asserts itself, and each bird presses to the 
 northernmost limit of its annual migration to rear its
 
 APRIL 111 
 
 young, true to that hereditary attachment to polar 
 regions which seems to indicate in them the cradle of 
 all organic life. 
 
 Migration may not prevail much longer to preserve 
 the lapwing. The utmost limits of the Highlands are 
 ransacked for eggs. Mr. Harvie Brown mentions one 
 village in Banffshire in which a small tradesman passed 
 1680 eggs to London in the spring of 1893. If the trade 
 in the birds themselves extends in like manner, goodbye 
 to our pretty peewits. It is vain to point to the large 
 flocks of these plover which move to and fro over the 
 continent of Europe, and still frequent our shores at 
 all seasons. Numbers are no guarantee against exter- 
 mination witness the bison of North America and 
 the incredible herds of big game which, within living 
 memory, peopled the plains of Natal and the Transvaal. 
 The fate that has overtaken the bison and the quagga 
 impends over the familiar peewit. 
 
 I have observed that most of the recommendations 
 of the Paris Conference about the protection of birds 
 have been carried out under statute in this country; 
 but there remains one in regard to which action has 
 not yet been taken. Birds are subjects of no state; 
 they observe no political landmarks or frontiers, but 
 move with the seasons from realm to realm. Hence 
 measures taken for their protection, to be effective, must 
 partake of an international character. The Conference 
 invited the British Government to prohibit the importa- 
 tion of birds killed in countries which had decreed 
 their protection. The lapwing is a case in point. Mil-
 
 112 A REMARKABLE BLUE-BOOK 
 
 lions of these birds are killed in Holland, where their 
 sale is prohibited at certain seasons, and these find a 
 ready market in this country. It is not unreasonable 
 to ask that Parliament should decree this traffic to be 
 contraband. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 Parliamentary Blue-books seldom afford succulent 
 reading do men gather grapes of thorns ? 
 able Blue- still less does one turn to them for examples 
 of high-class illustration. All the more agree- 
 able, therefore, is the surprise imparted by a Blue-book 
 (or whatever may be the American equivalent to a 
 Blue-book) lately published by the Legislature of the 
 State of New York, containing the first annual report 
 of the Commissioners of Fisheries, Game, and Forests. 
 This Commission, having been appointed as a per- 
 manent body by an act of 1895, which superseded 
 the old Forest Commission, explains in the preface 
 that its object has been to make its first report some- 
 thing more than commonplace something beyond a 
 dry recital of statistics and an account of work 
 accomplished in order ' to interest, and, in a degree, 
 instruct, the great mass of the people of the State in 
 regard to the fisheries, game, and forests.' The Com- 
 missioners are to be congratulated on the result of 
 this attempt. They have produced a volume which 
 is almost as interesting to naturalists and sportsmen 
 in the old world as to those of the new. This is
 
 APRIL 113 
 
 specially the case in regard to the first moiety of the 
 book, which deals with the fresh-water fisheries. In 
 this country our game laws, much as they have been 
 vituperated, are tolerably effective, without being 
 oppressive. Salmon, also, have come in for a greater 
 share of legislation in the United Kingdom than prob- 
 ably has ever been directed before to any living creature 
 except man himself. But for the rest, how little has 
 been done by the State to maintain the productiveness 
 of our inland waters, and to encourage their improve- 
 ment ! Why, the trout, with which Scottish waters not 
 many years ago teemed in a degree that seemed to defy 
 exhaustion, are absolutely without any legislative close- 
 time, and a small knot of Radical members have effec- 
 tively blocked a measure to provide one, lest, forsooth, 
 those tyrant landlords should derive an indirect advan- 
 tage therefrom. No such qualms disturb the judgment 
 of the legislators of New York State. They take the 
 view, which it is conceivable is not altogether ground- 
 less, that the natural resources of a country for afford- 
 ing recreation to a hard-working population are a proper 
 subject of their attention, even though some of those 
 who are exempt from their share of toiling and spinning 
 come in for a share of the benefit. 
 
 There are nine fish-hatcheries maintained in New 
 York State at the expense of the public, whence live 
 supplies are distributed to proper applicants, together 
 with instructions as to the right way of placing fresh 
 stock in the various waters. Sometimes application is 
 made for young fish, which it would not be desirable to 
 ii
 
 114 A REMARKABLE BLUE-BOOK 
 
 introduce everywhere. Several demands for mascalonge 
 the American pike were refused during 1895 ; on 
 the other hand, the mascalonge fisheries in the State 
 already produce a return of from 13,000 to 16,000 dols. 
 per annum ; so young fish and fry are freely supplied 
 where such a voracious creature may be preserved 
 without injury to other and more valuable species. 
 
 The extent of the operations of these hatcheries may 
 be estimated by the amount of fish adults, yearlings, 
 or fry distributed during 1895 : 
 
 Salmonidce. 
 
 American brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis), 1,901,000 
 
 European brook trout (Salmo fario), . . 850,250 
 
 Rainbow trout (Salmo widens), . . 100,000 
 
 Lake trout (Cristivomer Namaycush [?]), 645,000 
 
 Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), . . - . 15,000 
 
 Ouananiche ('land-locked' salmon), . . 30,000 
 
 Frost fish (Coregonus quadrilateralis), . . 1,875,000 
 
 (besides 2,000,000 ova) 
 
 Smelt (Osmerus mordax), . . . 16,192,000 
 
 Mascalonge (Lucius Masquinongy), . . 2,480,000 
 
 Black bass (Micropterus dolomieu and salmoides), 15,760 
 
 Perch (Perca Americana), '. . . , 750 
 
 Shad (Clupea sapidissima), . . ' 7,987,000 
 
 What contrast this affords to the way we manage 
 our fisheries! Anglers in this country may be num- 
 bered by tens of thousands ; angling is a priceless boon 
 to the labouring classes near industrial centres. It is 
 true that a great deal is being done by private enter-
 
 APEIL 115 
 
 prise to replenish our fisheries; but with what heart 
 can a Scottish angling club or individual undertake the 
 work, when protection is denied to fish during spawn- 
 ing-time ? In New York State the statutory close-time 
 for trout extends from September 1 to April 15. 
 
 This New York Legislature is not content with 
 supplying young fish and instructing persons how to 
 treat them after transport (an important matter, for 
 in this country millions of fry are destroyed by trans- 
 plantation from hard to soft, or from warm to cold, water, 
 or vice versa). There is also a chapter in this mar- 
 vellous Blue-book about the cultivation of insects and 
 crustaceans suitable for food. One applicant received 
 10,000 fresh -water shrimps (Gammarus) from the 
 Caledonia hatchery; May-flies (or day-flies, as they 
 are called in the States), alders, duns, spinners, etc., 
 are all recommended for transplanting. De minimis 
 non curat lex is an ancient adage, but American 
 anglers will not estimate by the size of the insects 
 the benefit conferred upon themselves. One important 
 provision, however, must not be overlooked namely, 
 that in no case are fish or insects supplied for intro- 
 duction into private waters, only for those in which 
 the public have fishing rights. 
 
 It is amusing to read in a parliamentary return an 
 enthusiastic description of the joys of angling, with 
 which the pages of this volume abound; but its peculiar 
 feature consists in the illustrations. Not only are there 
 head and tail pieces to the chapters delicious vignettes 
 of sporting incidents but a series of coloured plates
 
 116 A REMARKABLE BLUE-BOOK 
 
 has been added, delineating with admirable fidelity 
 the principal fresh- water fish and the deer and other 
 terrestrial animals of the State. Nothing perhaps is 
 so seldom rendered satisfactorily in colour printing as 
 trout of various kinds. Either the lustre is sacrificed 
 to the brilliant colour, giving a harsh and exaggerated 
 effect to the exquisite hues of nature, or the colour is 
 made too uniform and its delicate gradations lost. But 
 in these plates it would really be easy to believe that one 
 was beholding the original drawings of Mr. Denton. 
 They are absolutely faithful portraits both in drawing 
 and colour. It would be very hard to equal the litho- 
 graph of the smelt ; hardly possible to excel the skill 
 with which the pearly tones on gill-covers and scales 
 have been rendered. No publication occurs to mind 
 containing figures of fish so nearly approaching perfec- 
 tion as these. 
 
 There are some very interesting subjects in zoology 
 raised here and there throughout the book, curiously 
 sandwiched with extract from fishery and game laws. 
 The ouananiche, which is now authoritatively pro- 
 nounced to be specifically identified with our Atlantic 
 salmon (8. salar), is popularly known as the 'land- 
 locked ' salmon, on the supposition that some geological 
 convulsion has created a barrier which prevents its 
 descent to the sea. But the fact is, as the Commis- 
 sioners point out, that no such barrier could prevent 
 descent to the sea, however effectually it might bar 
 ascent from it. These salmon, in Maine, Labrador, 
 and Sweden, do not go to the sea simply because they
 
 APRIL 117 
 
 find ample store of food in their inland habitat an 
 important piece of evidence for ichthyologists, who 
 for long have been inclining to the conclusion that 
 salmon are naturally indigenous to fresh water, owning 
 a common ancestry with brook trout, and only acquired 
 a migratory habit from a craving for marine diet when 
 inland waters failed to afford enough food to support 
 them. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 The second issue of the Fish, Game, and Forestry 
 Commissioners of the State of New York is 
 like unto the first in abundance of excellent 
 reading. in America 
 
 'When the sail-boat is running across the wind at the 
 maximum of her speed, the sensation experienced by the 
 strike of a four or five pound fish bankrupts all description. 
 . . . The pleasure is largely concentrated in the strike (and 
 in the angler, I fancy) and the perception of a big fish 'fast.' 
 The watchfulness and labour involved in the subsequent 
 struggle border closely on the confines of pain. Brother of 
 the sleeve-silk and tinsel, when at last you gaze upon your 
 captive lying asphyxiated on the surface a synthesis of 
 qualities that makes a perfect fish when you disengage him 
 from the meshes of the net, and place his icy figure in your 
 outstretched palms, and watch the tropaeolin glow of his 
 awakening loves (please don't ask me to interpret this fine 
 passage) soften into cream tints, and the cream tints pale into 
 the pearl of moonstone you will experience a peculiar thrill 
 that the capture neither of ownanwhe nor fontinaUs nor 
 namaycush can ever excite.'
 
 118 FISH AND GAME PRESERVATION IN AMERICA 
 
 Supposing this to be a faithful account of the capture 
 of Sunapee trout (Salvelinus alpinus aureolus), a most 
 desirable kind of char, which runs up to twenty pounds 
 in weight, it is not surprising that the successful angler 
 should enthuse a little wildly. Nevertheless, should a 
 passage in the same tropical style occur in the Annual 
 Report of Her Majesty's Commissioners of Woods and 
 Forests, there might be talk of proceedings de lunatico 
 inquirendo, yet the quotation is from an official paper 
 issued by Government, which is reckoned one of the 
 most business-like in the world. Instead of mono- 
 tonous columns of print, covered in paper suggestive 
 of groceries, such as those the publications ' presented 
 to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her 
 Majesty,' here we have 500 quarto pages, of which about 
 one-fourth contain tabulated returns, the remainder 
 being filled with papers on sport and natural history, 
 profusely and beautifully illustrated, and the whole 
 bound in buckram boards most delicious to the touch. 
 
 The object of a public department in propagating the 
 love of field sports by such papers as the one quoted 
 from above may not be quite clear until it is understood 
 that the State of New York is an immense landowner, 
 and nearly the whole of its estates are devoted to the 
 preservation of game and sporting fish, which may be 
 pursued by the public free of charge, but under strict 
 regulations as to close time. 
 
 Now when we consider the haphazard, hand-to- 
 mouth manner in which the freshwater fishings of Great 
 Britain and Ireland are managed, when we remember
 
 APRIL 119 
 
 that such magnificent streams as the Tweed and the 
 Shannon are made to yield every salmon that can be 
 taken by hook or by crook, and that artificial replenish- 
 ment by hand-hatching is absolutely neglected, we are 
 filled with envy of the skilful development of natural 
 sources conducted by the Government of New York 
 State, and the question arises why we don't attempt 
 something of the same sort. Well, the reply to that is 
 found first, in the immense superiority in extent of 
 the territory owned by New York State to that of the 
 Crown lands in this country. The area of the Adiron- 
 dack preserve alone amounts to 801,473 acres, against 
 which our greatest Crown domain the New Forest 
 weighs in shabbily with some 65,000 acres. Next, the 
 New York Commission supply fish stock gratuitously 
 for waters outside the property of the State, subject to 
 a very important condition. Every private owner of 
 waters may apply to have them stocked from the State 
 hatcheries at the public expense, after which, all private 
 rights notwithstanding, the right of fishing in such 
 waters is vested in the public. In short, the State offers 
 to stock, and maintain the stock, in any waters, provided 
 that it thereby secures the right of free fishing for its 
 citizens. That, it will be granted, is a vastly different 
 affair from free fishing as contemplated by persons who 
 heckle candidates for Parliament on the subject in this 
 country, and take no thought for the maintenance of the 
 stock to endure the incessant drain. 
 
 How does it answer in New York State? Let Mr. 
 Cheney, the State fish culturist, give his experience
 
 120 FISH AND GAME PRESERVATION IN AMERICA 
 
 of a pond (probably we should call it a lake) in the 
 Adirondack. In this water 5000 brook fry trout were 
 planted some years ago by the State. It did not occur 
 to any free fishers to cast angle in this water till one 
 Mr. Witherbee, lucky dog ! went there one morning 
 and secured five beautiful frontinalis, weighing in the 
 aggregate 20^ pounds, an average of over four pounds 
 of which the lusty, shapely forms are displayed in a 
 photograph illustrating Mr. Cheney's paper. Of course, 
 Mr. Witherbee did not keep his success secret; what 
 angler ever does so ? Half more than half the joy of 
 fishing comes in the mollia fandi tempora after a good 
 day. 
 
 ' The pond ' (says Mr. Cheney), ' of course, was public water, 
 and at once it was fished without ceasing. One trout of 
 over eleven pounds was taken from it taken, too, without 
 regard to the ethics of fair angling ; and it is more than 
 suspected that even a larger trout was taken from the inlet 
 stream at the spawning season, a trout of thirteen pounds 
 three ounces.' 
 
 Touching these same Salmo fontinalis, or American 
 brook trout, great has been the disappointment experi- 
 enced in this country in attempts to naturalise them, 
 and it is only lately that the adverse condition an 
 insuperable one, it is to be feared has been explained 
 by Mr. Cheney. The fontinalis is not a true trout at 
 all, but a char; and, like our native char, can only 
 thrive in cold water. The mean temperature of most 
 British waters is too high for them, and the result is 
 that of many millions that have been reared and turned
 
 APRIL 121 
 
 out in our lakes and streams, not one in a thousand has 
 been recaptured, and the rest have mysteriously dis- 
 appeared. Probably they would succeed well enough 
 in our larger and deeper lakes, some of which, like 
 Windermere and Ullswater, Loch Grannoch in Gallo- 
 way, and a few of the Welsh and Highland waters, 
 already contain kindred species of char. To the enter- 
 prising and successful Society which has undertaken the 
 development of the angling resources of Loch Lomond, 
 the fontinalis might be commended with some confid- 
 ence that it would thrive exceedingly in the profound 
 abyss of that inland sea. 
 
 Space is wanting to touch upon all the attractive 
 subjects in this delightful volume. Besides fish, papers 
 are devoted to deer, ruffed grouse, woodcock, and other 
 game, and statistics are given showing how the stock of 
 these valuable and interesting animals has stood the 
 annual inroads of trippers and freeshooters of all 
 kinds, and suggesting further precautions for their 
 preservation. Forestry, also, has its part in the labours 
 of the Commission, though it is confessed that the 
 present State law, which totally proscribes the use of 
 the axe in its preserves, greatly interferes with the right 
 development of its woodlands. 
 
 In short, it is long since I have come across a better 
 guinea's worth of reading on matters piscatorial and 
 venatic than in this publication. The illustrations 
 alone are worth the money.
 
 122 FLY-FISHING 
 
 XXX 
 
 Should the political pendulum swing back in time to 
 enable Sir Edward Grey to fulfil the confident 
 anticipations of his party, his essay on Fly- 
 fishing 1 will command an interest far beyond that 
 of a mere treatise on his favourite sport. Indeed, it 
 possesses that interest now. Even men with souls so 
 dead as to be insensible to the angler's infatuation 
 may peruse with pleasure Sir Edward Grey's memories 
 of early Winchester days. They may listen as he tells 
 with artless egoism how, arriving as a little north- 
 country boy in that unfamiliar southern landscape, 
 he wandered forth upon those meadows of wondrous 
 green, and beheld, in the network of channels inter- 
 secting them, trout of a length and circumference 
 undreamt of in the burns of his native Northumber- 
 land. They may follow him in his fruitless exercise 
 of the art of fly-fishing as he then understood it, 
 until that fertile moment when the higher mystery 
 of the craft being revealed to him, he acquired the 
 knack of presenting the dry fly. They may share his 
 boyish worship of the man who caught more than any 
 one else. 
 
 ' He fished nearly every day, and from watching him long 
 and often I became aware of certain peculiarities in his 
 style. ... He dried his fly harder and more rapidly than 
 any one I ever saw, and brought it floating over the fish 
 oftener in a given space of time. His rod and line used to 
 make a very busy sound in the air as he dried his fly. It 
 1 Fly-fisUng. By Sir Edward Grey. London : Dent and Co. 1899.
 
 APEIL 123 
 
 was not pretty fishing to watch, but when he made a cast the 
 line went out straight and accurate, and he once to my 
 knowledge landed in one day from this much-fished part of 
 the river seven brace of trout, all above the limit of size. . . . 
 He was a very silent angler, as if his business was solely 
 with the trout ; and what he was, besides being the best 
 resident fisherman at Winchester, remained unknown to me. 
 I was so struck by his success in fishing that it never 
 occurred to me to ask about anything else.' 
 
 Most of Sir Edward's book is devoted to dry fly- 
 fishing the most difficult branch of the art angler's 
 craft whereof he is acknowledged to be one of the most 
 accomplished exponents in practice. But he has a good 
 deal to say about salmon-fishing also, wherein he may 
 expect to find less uniform acceptance of all his views. 
 When were two salmon fishers ever in complete accord on 
 the problems of their pursuit ? On the varieties of salmon 
 flies he takes what may be termed the rational view 
 namely, that these are multiplied far more for the de- 
 lectation of fishers than the destruction of fish. The 
 author's counsel of perfection is to be content with four 
 varieties of salmon fly in different sizes; but, being 
 human, he admits that such content is almost impos- 
 sible of attainment. 
 
 ' How often have I gone into a tackle shop to make pro- 
 vision for a spell of fishing in Scotland, and entered it with 
 a fairly distinct idea of the limits, both in number and 
 variety, of flies that were wanted, and how often have these 
 limits expanded, and at last dissolved altogether under the 
 genial influence of the display of flies upon the counter ! The 
 number of seemingly indispensable patterns increases as the
 
 124 FLY-FISHING 
 
 sheets of flies are spread before me; so too do the seem- 
 ingly indispensable sizes of each pattern, and at last I 
 emerge, exhausted by the struggle of selection, alarmed at 
 the amount of my purchase, and yet uneasy for fear it should 
 not be large enough, and I have omitted the one thing needful 
 after all.' 
 
 Which of us does not recognise our own feelings 
 under similar circumstances ? 
 
 In this agreeable way does Sir Edward Grey dis- 
 course, discursive but never irrelevant, and never dull. 
 His book is as little of a dry treatise as can be, and (it 
 will scarcely be credited) I have perused it from title 
 to colophon without once coming upon an allusion to 
 the 'immortal Izaak.' Neither is Sir Edward a 
 butcher. There is a vast deal that contributes to his 
 enjoyment of a day's fishing besides the weight of his 
 basket. Thus in Hampshire : 
 
 ' Every sense is alert and excited, every scent and every- 
 thing seen or heard is noted with delight. You are grateful 
 for the grass on which you walk, even for the soft country 
 dust about your feet. 
 
 Again, in the Highlands : 
 
 'There come times when the angler, who wanders alone 
 after sea trout down glens and over moors, has a sense of 
 physical energy and strength beyond all his experience in 
 ordinary life. . . . The pure act of breathing at such times 
 seems glorious. People talk of being a child of Nature, and 
 moments such as these are the times when it is possible to 
 feel so ; to know the full joy of animal life, to desire nothing 
 beyond. There are times when I have stood still for joy of 
 it all, on my way through the wild freedom of a Highland
 
 APKIL 125 
 
 moor, and felt the wind, and looked upon the mountains 
 and water and light and sky, till I felt conscious only of the 
 strength of a mighty current of life, which swept away all 
 consciousness of self, and made me a part of all that I 
 beheld. 
 
 Anglers are prone to rhapsody, but it is not often 
 that they can express the higher hedonism so featly.
 
 XXXI 
 
 FEW journeys of equal length afford so many agreeable 
 May in contrasts as that between Berlin and Copen- 
 Demnark h agerL F or a hundred and fifty miles the 
 route lies through a vast, unfenced, sandy plain, barred 
 with belts of gloomy pines ; at Warnemunde the dusty 
 corridor train is exchanged for a bright little steamer 
 which, in a couple of hours, runs you across the spark- 
 ling Ostsee to Danish Gjeddesrodde ; whence an amphi- 
 bious railway winds its leisurely course towards the 
 capital, through smiling pastures, English hedgerows, 
 and beechwoods beloved of Hans Andersen. Not less 
 surprising is the difference in the people from those you 
 have left behind. German officials never suffer you to 
 forget the ' mailed fist ' ; one feels lucky to escape from 
 them without incurring some frightful penalty for 
 breach of all-pervading military etiquette. But in 
 Denmark all is changed; militarism has disappeared; 
 the guard of the train is no longer an exaggerated 
 drill-sergeant, nor has the stationmaster the bear- 
 ing of a brigadier. The formalities of the douane 
 are carried out sympathetically almost apologeti- 
 
 126
 
 MAY 127 
 
 cally (do not disregard the inscription within the 
 Custom - House Tobaksrygnin forbydes that is, 
 'Smoking is forbidden'); the officers seem positively 
 shocked at the nature of the duties imposed upon 
 them as they request the traveller to unlock one of his 
 many pieces. Then you are conducted with many 
 smiles and bows (for this is of all countries the home 
 of courtesy) to a truly luxurious railway car, and are 
 made to feel as you take your seat therein that you are 
 conferring unmerited honour upon the State which 
 owns and works the line. 
 
 Have a care ! there is a shade of perfidy in this atten- 
 tion. If you are induced to seat yourself in the fore- 
 part of this amphibious train, you will have to leave it 
 at Vordingburg, some twenty miles further on, where 
 the hind part is run upon the steam ferry, to cross the 
 channel separating Laaland from Zeeland. However, 
 on this warm Sunday afternoon in May there is not 
 much hardship involved in the transfer, and waiting on 
 the far side is another carriage, every whit as comfort- 
 able as the one you are leaving. And so forward, 
 through a country neatly fenced with hedgerow timber, 
 reminding one of England; through beech forests in 
 exquisite new greenery, wherein groups of happy people 
 and children arrayed in Sunday best are strolling ; past 
 trim gardens surrounding comfortable farmhouses and 
 cottages with timbered walls. The landscape is fascinat- 
 ing as seen in the slanting rays, and the leisurely State 
 railway does not rush through it in the vulgar, com- 
 petitive way we are accustomed to in England.
 
 128 MAY IN DENMARK 
 
 On the whole, perhaps, the mean speed of Danish 
 trains is less than those of any other country ; but it is 
 a narrow land, and there is always the risk of running 
 over the edge of it. Besides, as you cannot fail to 
 observe, the train officials have an immense deal of 
 gossip to exchange with the station officials and 
 bystanders. The time-tables have been arranged to suit 
 this requirement, and we run into Copenhagen punc- 
 tually to a minute. It is Sunday evening, and ex- 
 cursion trains are discharging crowds of trippers 
 returning from the country. Most of these people 
 carry wild flowers, and especially large sprays of beech 
 with new tender foliage. The beech leaves are sadly 
 withered, and I am disposed to pity these people for 
 the disappointment they have earned by carrying home 
 material of such transient beauty. But they know 
 well what they are about. Next day my business took 
 me into a number of houses in the town, the suburbs, 
 and the country ; every room seemed to contain fresh 
 beech boughs, which, set in water, had revived, and 
 formed a charming and simple decoration. As the oak 
 is to England, the chestnut to Lombardy, and the pine 
 to Switzerland, so the beech is the glory of Denmark. 
 Comparatively few holiday makers ever think of 
 Copenhagen the 'market harbour' (just as our own 
 Chipping Norton is the 'market north town') as a 
 place of quiet resort ; yet it possesses many agreeable 
 qualities not to be found in cities of wider renown 
 Moreover, except Italy, Denmark is perhaps the only 
 country in Europe where an Englishman may feel sure
 
 MAY 129 
 
 of a hearty welcome on account of his nationality ; and 
 it certainly contributes to the pleasure of foreign 
 travel to feel that one's presence is not an offence to the 
 resident population. 
 
 There is a good deal to attract interest in the build- 
 ings of Copenhagen, though the Christiansborg Palace, 
 burnt down in 1794 and rebuilt, burnt down again in 
 1884 and not yet rebuilt, stands silent and roofless, 
 with grass-grown courts, in the midst of the bright, 
 busy town. The sentries on the present royal residence 
 recall by their equipment the armies of the eighteenth 
 century; they always pace their beats in pairs, 
 earnestly conversing, and each is equipped with a 
 sword slung in the old-fashioned shoulder belt, an 
 enormous antique cartridge pouch hanging from the 
 other shoulder, besides carrying rifle and bayonet. 
 
 But the attractions of the town are duly set forth in 
 many guide-books ; perhaps its chief charm is the ease 
 with which escape is made to a lovely country. Yes, 
 for it is lovely in spring, though Denmark can boast no 
 mountain scenery, no running water larger than a fair 
 water-jump. Let me not do this sweet land injustice ; 
 it has its alpine tract round Silkeborg in Jutland, where 
 the heaven-splitting Himmelbjerg rears its proud crest 
 to the altitude of no less than 515 feet the highest 
 point in the kingdom. But nowhere can you get far 
 from water, either fresh lakes or salt fjords, and with 
 water, green fields, deep woods, and wild flowers, you 
 must be hard to please if beauty does not abound for 
 you. 
 
 i
 
 130 MAY IN DENMARK 
 
 One thing the stranger may notice with surprise 
 in this the premier dairy country in the world. 
 Nowhere else has the craft of producing the very best 
 butter been brought to such perfection ; nowhere else 
 has practical instruction in the theory and essentials 
 of dairying been so deeply instilled into the farmers 
 and peasantry, as British farmers and peasants have 
 learned to their cost. No town in the world can boast 
 such a copious supply of pure cheap milk as is poured 
 into Copenhagen through Dr. Busck's Mcelkeforsyning 
 (Dairy Supply Company). Yet in all the landscape not 
 a cow is to be seen in the fields. No ; because it is not 
 yet mid- May, and it is only during four months in the 
 year that the herds are turned out to graze. The 
 remaining eight they spend in their stalls. We had 
 occasion to visit several herds, and very beautiful some 
 of them were, composed of red Zeeland cows, confined 
 in some cases to the number of a hundred and fifty in 
 a single building, scrupulously clean. Undoubtedly it 
 is a disadvantage that the climate makes such long 
 confinement necessary, a disadvantage from which the 
 British farmer is exempt ; yet he has allowed the Dane 
 a long start in dairying. He may as well give up the 
 competition, unless he is prepared to follow humbly in 
 his rival's wake, and treat the business scientifically. 
 It was humiliating to hear from the tenant of Rosendal 
 that half of his butter was consigned direct to 
 Manchester, the remainder going to Paris, as he 
 explained in the course of a picturesque middag-mad 
 at which he entertained us.
 
 MAY 131 
 
 Oh, those middag-mads I how exquisite, but how far 
 too frequent for safety ! Mid-day meals the term 
 signifies, but they met us at almost every hour in the 
 day. The company stands round the table while the 
 host pours out red wine for each guest. Then there is 
 a general pledging and quaffing, chairs are set, and the 
 viands, bewildering in variety, seductive in their ex- 
 cellence, undergo a sustained assault. Coffee, dry 
 (absolutely sugarless) kummel and good cigars come in 
 their course, and one is expected to bring a clear head 
 to the business which follows. 
 
 It is charming to drive in spring from village to 
 village, each with its church tower like an exaggerated 
 dovecot ; still more charming to stop the carriage and 
 dive into the recesses of the beech woods. Endless 
 vistas of silvery trunks, and below them a carpet, partly 
 russet with fallen leaves, partly green with springing 
 grass and wood hyacinths, and gemmed all over with 
 purple lungwort, anemones white and yellow, and cow- 
 slips. Not such cowslips as may be gathered in Surrey 
 or Herts ; if you are a bit of a botanist you will notice 
 that all through Zeeland the oxlip takes the place of 
 cowslip and primrose, a form intermediate between 
 both, stalked like a cowslip, but with larger flowers. It 
 is a striking adornment to the meadows and woods. 
 
 Of game not much is to be seen, though the land- 
 owners are fond of pheasant-shooting. There are far 
 too many grey crows prowling around, with less 
 numerous magpies, to allow partridges much chance 
 of rearing their broods. A hen harrier (a species now
 
 132 THE MAYFLY AND THE TROUT 
 
 nearly extinct in England) is circling far overhead, and 
 a buzzard sails over the neighbouring copse. But the 
 most conspicuous bird is the stork, associated . with 
 memories of Hans Andersen, to whom he was so dear. 
 The storks have just arrived from the south to start 
 their domestic affairs for the season. Danish house- 
 holders hail their presence as bringing good luck to a 
 homestead, and tempt them to build by placing a cart- 
 wheel horizontally on the barn roof. 
 
 There is no better place to spend a quiet holiday 
 than among this happy, contented people, once the 
 scourge of English shores; and if anything else were 
 wanting to attract roving visitors, the quality of Danish 
 roads should find favour with bicyclists. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 Somewhat late the other evening, a trout, more daring 
 than his fellows in the winding Lea, had the 
 and the hardihood to seize one of a flight of large 
 gossamer-winged flies as it floated over his 
 nose. Instantly the news was circulated in subaqueous 
 quarters that the insect was one of .unusual delicacy, 
 and before dark the dimples, rings, and splashes of 
 rising fish might be seen all over the water. Through- 
 out the previous week a few mayflies had been seen, 
 heralds of the coming swarm, but not a trout would 
 point his nose at one ; delicate duns and March browns 
 were all the fancy. But on the Saturday in question 
 the beautiful queen of the ephemerids came out in
 
 MAY 133 
 
 large numbers ; fleets of mayflies had been sailing along 
 the gentle current for more than an hour before the 
 tish seemed to recognise the delicious banquet prepared 
 for them in such lavish abundance ; indeed, the pre- 
 sence of so many large insects on the surface seemed 
 at first to scare the trout, and to put down those that 
 were rising at smaller flies. 
 
 This hesitation on the part of the trout to begin 
 their annual banquet is one of the best known, and, 
 at the same time, least explicable, features of the 
 mayfly fortnight. Trout have good memories, other- 
 wise they could not profit by experience and be 
 rendered so suspicious when much fished for. One 
 would say, then, that such a remarkable event in the 
 piscine year as the rise of the mayfly should be one 
 to leave a lasting impression on their recoUection, and 
 that they would be keen to recommence the feast 
 which had contributed so greatly to their enjoyment in 
 previous summers, and also to their proportions. But 
 it is not so. Every angler knows how suspiciously 
 trout regard the mayfly at first. The big fellows wait 
 till impetuous youngsters of half or three-quarters of 
 a pound have sampled the consignment. If it turns 
 out genuine and according to contract, they know 
 that for ten days or a fortnight they will simply 
 have to lie near the top of the water in some con- 
 venient lodge where the wind or current will bring 
 within easy reach more than the most robust digestion 
 can deal with. But when once these patriarchs begin, 
 they lose their heads and abandon themselves to
 
 134 THE MAYFLY AND THE TROUT 
 
 gluttony. You may put one of them down by an 
 awkward cast, you may even hook him and lose him 
 in the weeds it is no matter for mourning ; plenty 
 of other fish are rising steadily elsewhere ; and if you 
 have a special hankering after this one because of 
 his size, or shape, or some other quality, return to the 
 spot a couple of hours later, and the chances are 
 you will find him quite ready to do business with 
 you again. 
 
 In truth, it is not very delicate work this mayfly 
 fishing. You may use gut as stout as would utterly 
 wreck all prospects of success when fishing with a 00 
 or 000 quill ; in fact, strong gut must be used, because 
 this is the only time in the year when the biggest 
 trout cruise near the surface, and the most delicate 
 handling cannot avert disaster with fine tackle among 
 weeds, and a violent creature of five, six, or seven 
 pounds at the end of it. Nor does a fish after sucking 
 down, say, sixty succulent mayflies bestow very minute 
 scrutiny on the sixty-first object that comes over him, 
 provided it has a fair general resemblance to the others 
 and passes within convenient reach. There is none of 
 that prolonged, agonising stare which a wary customer 
 directs upon the artificial dun or ' fancy,' whereof the 
 result is so often either to make him dash away in 
 terror or sink out of sight in disgust. The chief diffi- 
 culty, indeed, in the thick of the rise is to persuade 
 a trout that yours is the best insect out of the scores 
 which are passing over his head in a continuous 
 stream.
 
 MAY 135 
 
 It is well, therefore, that there should occur some 
 obstacles to a conquest which were otherwise all too 
 easy. Of these, wind is the commonest and it has 
 been peculiarly aggravating this season (1898). Sad, 
 sad the monotony with which the banks of Hertford- 
 shire and Hampshire streams re-echoed to one parti- 
 cular English monosyllable during the last week of 
 May. The wind swept down every reach and swirled 
 round every recess of the rivers, lifting the newly- 
 hatched flies from the water, scattering them far over 
 the fields, and tossing your airy make-believe into the 
 least accessible branches of willow and ash. There is 
 a good three-pounder lying where the stream ripples 
 softly over a waving ledge of water ranunculus, right 
 in the fair channel; you wait for a lull in the blast; 
 you measure your cast with three or four waves of 
 the rod, then, just at the critical moment of delivery, 
 Notus, or Auster. or Boreas (for they were all on the 
 rampage last week), swoops shrilly down and whirls 
 the line into the pollard on the far side of the 
 stream. 
 
 When all goes smoothly one is apt to he touched 
 by remorse. Nobody has ever been known to hold 
 his hand in salmon-fishing, except by reason of sheer 
 bodily fatigue. But many a man must have felt 
 when trout are well on the mayfly orgy that he 
 wishes they would not be quite so simple. One 
 friend of mine declares that he means to fish with a 
 barbless hook that he is content if he can morally 
 ' bowl ' the big fellows. I don't feel that this puts the
 
 136 THE MAYFLY AND THE TROUT 
 
 angler in a very dignified position. If Homo sapiens 
 means to match his intellect with that of some other 
 animal, he ought to hit upon one nearer his own intel- 
 lectual stature. If a quarter of a century of compulsory 
 education has done no more for us than to enable us 
 to outwit a brook trout, we have no business to waste 
 time in fishing. On the other hand, one cannot take 
 a stand on the physical basis, for how should a creature 
 with legs and arms, weighing some fourteen stone, 
 not prevail against one with neither, weighing perhaps 
 three pounds ? 
 
 No; if you feel disinclined for easy slaughter, and 
 are superior to the competitive vanity of a heavy 
 basket, you can always handicap yourself by looking 
 for fish in difficult places. There is one putting up 
 his nose on the far side of those trailing willow sprays ; 
 the fly will come nicely over him if you can only land it 
 in the opening above the tree, but then there is a 
 thorn bush on the hither bank which interferes with 
 free movement of the rod, It can only be done by a 
 horizontal cast, not too low to catch the meadow 
 grasses, nor too high to strike the willow boughs. 
 There ! after several failures the feat is accomplished : 
 the fly lands on the right spot, about three yards 
 above the fish. Will it ever reach him ? Will there 
 come that fatal drag, caused by the swifter current on 
 the near side, or by the line catching in one of the 
 willow sprays? Right! It swims down as naturally 
 as might be ; just at the expected spot there is the 
 tiniest disturbance, such as a water-beetle might create.
 
 MAY 137 
 
 It flashes through your mind that it is only a wretched 
 little dace after all ; but at the same moment you 
 strike. Woe be to you if your finger is on the line, 
 for the action is followed by a mighty plunge, and 
 away goes a heavy fish tearing up stream with the 
 reel spinning merrily. 
 
 ' Now that,' you reflect, as five minutes later you 
 mark the index of your steelyard opposite the figure 
 4, ' that is a neat bit of work. I wish that fellow in 
 the club who is always bragging about his casting 
 had seen it. I believe most chaps would have pro- 
 nounced that fish impossible.' 
 
 There is another mode of handicapping the angler 
 which was in vogue with our grandfathers, if old 
 sporting illustrations may be relied on. They always 
 went a-fishing in top hats and stiff stocks. By reviving 
 this excruciating garb man would at least be giving 
 evidence of intelligence not greatly more powerful than 
 that of the fish he is trying to deceive. 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 In the north, by common usage, we talk of the 
 sycamore as the plane. The true plane, 
 which, above all other trees, has endeared the syca- 
 itself to Londoners by its admirable be- 
 haviour when exposed to the excessive drought and 
 coal smoke inseparable from this metropolis, is not 
 commonly planted in Scotland, although it seems to 
 agree equally well with our cool soil and moist climate,
 
 138 CONCERNING THE SYCAMORE 
 
 as it does with more southern conditions. The reason 
 for the common Scottish designation of the sycamore 
 must be sought in the ancient connection of Scotland 
 with France, which is responsible for the presence of 
 so many French words in Lowlands Scots. In old- 
 fashioned French plane signified the sycamore, and 
 platane the plane, both being forms of the Latin 
 platanus, from the Greek TrXararo?, a name bestowed 
 on the tree because of its broad leaves. The superficial 
 resemblance of the sycamore and the plane has received 
 scientific recognition by classifying the sycamore as 
 Acer pseudo-platanus the plane-like maple or mock 
 plane. Such resemblances are neither rare nor per- 
 plexing among distinct species of the same family ; as, 
 for example, the so-called acacia (Robinia pseudo- 
 acacia), which, although botanically speaking not a 
 true acacia, yet belongs to the same pea-flower family 
 as the acacia. But when this resemblance occurs 
 between plants of widely separated families, the ques- 
 tion arises at once as to the meaning and origin of 
 such masquerade. When the plant is a humble one, 
 such as the dead nettle (Lamium), the intention seems 
 to be almost certainly protective a kind of 'hands 
 off'!' on the part of an innocuous species which has 
 acquired the appearance of a hurtful one. It affords a 
 nice problem for discussion between teleologists and 
 evolutionists to determine whether the controlling 
 influence is exoteric or esoteric. Even in certain 
 plants of grander stature the object is sometimes pretty 
 obvious. The evergreen oak the holm, hollen, or
 
 MAY 139 
 
 holly oak essays an ineffective imitation of the splen- 
 didly successful armature of the holly, in order to 
 protect its lower and younger growth. But it is not 
 easy to see what purpose is served in the assumption 
 by the sycamore a true maple of the outward 
 characteristics of the plane. Maples and planes belong 
 to families widely separated in the natural order ; their 
 affinities are totally distinct. The fruit of the maple 
 takes the form of keys or winged nuts, that of the 
 plane being a globular and pendulous catkin. In this 
 respect there is not the slightest resemblance between 
 them, and it is not confined to the foliage. 
 
 I am making these random observations on the 
 banks of the Tay, near Dunkeld. Fishing is rendered 
 more futile than usual by a sudden and rapid rise in 
 the Avater; the salmon, of which there is good store, 
 seem to have gone temporarily off what little heads 
 they have; they are cutting the most ungainly and 
 superfluous capers ; and it is about as profitable to offer 
 them a fly as to hand a dish of ceufs brouilles aux 
 tru/es to a parcel of Highlanders engaged in dancing 
 a reel. So I have turned my attention to a large 
 sycamore, which exhibits more plainly than most of its 
 kind that habit of casting its bark in scales which it 
 has borrowed from the Oriental plane. This does not 
 extend to the younger branches, as in the true plane, 
 but the bark of the trunk and main limbs is scaling 
 off freely in the plane's best manner. I can offer no 
 solution. Both trees are natives of Southern Europe, 
 and exotic in this country, although the sycamore has
 
 140 SALMON FOR THE THAMES 
 
 taken so kindly to our climate and soil as to propagate 
 itself far more freely than our one native maple (Acer 
 campestre). 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 It appears that a serious attempt is about to be made 
 to restore salmon to the Thames. Doubts 
 
 Sctlmon 
 
 fortiie have been expressed first, as to the possi- 
 bility of this noble fish revisiting a river of 
 such dubious purity; and, secondly, as to the view 
 which Thames anglers for coarse fish will take of the 
 advantage of a proceeding which some of them imagine 
 will override their undoubted rights. Well, to take the 
 last objection first, there is not the slightest ground for 
 apprehension. The example of the Trent might carry 
 reassurance in that respect. Nottingham anglers are 
 proverbially the most skilled practitioners in coarse 
 fishing, and the presence of salmon in that river does 
 not interfere in the slightest degree either with the 
 abundance of coarse fish, or with the sport of those who 
 take them. 
 
 Then as to the condition of the river who that 
 knows the Tyne at Newcastle, which in its upper 
 course is one of the best salmon-angling rivers in 
 England, can doubt that the Thames estuary is 
 limpidity itself compared to the sable current that 
 flows through the northern town ? It is argued that 
 the tidal portion of the Thames is far longer than that 
 of the Tyne, and that, whereas salmon might pass 
 through a short course of greater pollution, they would
 
 MAY 141 
 
 succumb to a longer passage, although through less 
 impurity. It is true that from Teddington to Thames 
 Haven is about three times further than from Ryton to 
 Tynemouth, but there is material for reassurance even 
 upon that point. The smelt (Osmerus eperlanus) is a 
 true salmonoid, most nearly related to the grayling, ex- 
 clusively estuarine in its habit. Its limits of seasonal 
 migration are the highest point of the tide on one 
 hand, where it deposits its spawn, and the lower reaches 
 of the estuary on the other, whither it descends in 
 autumn and winter. For more than half a century it 
 has been unknown to frequent the Thames ; doubtless 
 in the bad old days of indiscriminate filth the waters of 
 the estuary were uninhabitable by such a delicate fish. 
 It disappeared : even the more robust eel could not get 
 down to the sea to spawn, nor its myriad progeny of 
 elvers return through the foul water. The continued 
 presence in the Thames of eels, which must be hatched 
 in the sea, can only be explained by the communication 
 afforded by the Severn canal into the Bristol channel. 
 In 1896, however, smelts appeared in numbers in the 
 Thames, and were caught as high as Teddington, 
 whence it appears plain that if the smelt is able to 
 reside and thrive in the tidal waters, salmon may pass 
 through them uninjured in their annual migration. It 
 may be asked, Why not leave it to the salmon to find 
 their way back to the Thames as the smelts have done ? 
 The answer is that there are no rivers now frequented 
 by salmon within a great distance of the mouth of the 
 Thames, although smelts have never ceased to inhabit
 
 142 SALMON FOR THE THAMES 
 
 certain estuaries connected with that of the Thames. 
 Probably, in course of years, wandering salmon might 
 stray into the river mouth and work their way up to 
 the first impassable weir ; but why wait for such a slow 
 and fortuitous course of events, if there is reason to 
 hope for success by accelerating the process artificially ? 
 If salmon were reared in considerable numbers and 
 turned into the Thames for three or four consecutive 
 seasons, their well-known homing instinct would 
 prompt them to endeavour to return there after an 
 excursion to the sea. If they did not reappear, it 
 would be fair to conclude that some conditions still 
 prevail unfavourable to their existence; if they did 
 reappear, it would be time to take steps to make the 
 numerous weirs passable to the ascent of breeding 
 fish. 
 
 Still, physical conditions must be fairly faced ; and 
 although there has been a vast improvement of late 
 years in the cleanliness of the estuary, it cannot be 
 denied that a formidable obstacle still exists to the free 
 ascent of salmon. A recent expedition (1899) by river 
 to the lower reaches of the estuary enabled me to realise 
 some truly remarkable results of the joint action of the 
 London County Council and the Thames Conservancy. 
 Those who knew the river below London Bridge 
 ten or fifteen years ago must have a recollection of a 
 malodorous dark current flowing at low tide between 
 exposed flats of black sludge. These flats have dis- 
 appeared ; the margins of the river are everywhere,
 
 MAY 143 
 
 except where built on, bright flint gravel or clean sand. 
 Men may be seen on either side all the way down from 
 Woolwich filling barges with this sand, to be carried 
 away and sold for building purposes. A few years ago 
 these men might as well have washed for gold as dug 
 for sand. The current is still turbid, as all water must 
 be in a sandy estuary ; but so far as regards suspended 
 matter, there is nothing in its present condition to 
 injure fish life. Proof of that is afforded by the recent 
 return of sprats to the reaches about Barking and 
 Tilbury in such numbers that the Conservancy are now 
 considering the application of fishermen to be allowed 
 to erect fixed nets for their capture, the objection to 
 these being that they catch so many other kinds of 
 fish. The condition of the water was tested by the 
 nose at various points in the channel, and betrayed no 
 more perceptible odour than always accompanies 
 brackish water. Indeed, at one place, immediately 
 below the outfall from the sewage works at Barking, 
 two of the party, not content with olfactory evidence, 
 had the hardihood to fill their mouths with the fluid, 
 and declared they could taste nothing but salt. The 
 improvement has been effected by the rigid precautions 
 of the Conservancy in prohibiting all impurity being 
 cast or drained into the river above bridges, and by 
 dredging the channel below ; and also by the scrupulous 
 care of the County Council in removing all solid and 
 flocculent deposit from the sewage to the extent of 
 many million tons per annum, and carrying it out to 
 sea in hoppers.
 
 144 SALMON FOR THE THAMES 
 
 In short, the obstacle to the ascent of the Thames by 
 salmon and the descent of their young is no longer to 
 be looked for in the condition of the estuary water in 
 early summer when there is an abundant flow of land 
 water. The trouble comes later, when the volume of 
 the river, shrinking with the seasonal influence, is 
 further unduly diminished by the abstractions of the 
 water companies. If the minimum recommended by 
 Lord Balfour's Commission, 200,000,000 gallons a day, 
 were kept flowing at all times over Teddington Weir, 
 there would not be much doubt that the Thames could 
 be restored as a salmon river. Unfortunately, the 
 water companies are not provided with proper storage ; 
 London must drink, and wash, and water her streets ; 
 in September, 1898, the daily average at Teddington was 
 reduced by abstraction to 76,000,000 gallons. Such a 
 current has no weight to force its way seawards, still 
 less to carry before it the effluent from Barking works, 
 which, though purified by precipitation and de-odorised, 
 has also been totally de-oxygenated. Consequently, in 
 times of drought, a column of water, several miles long, 
 and destitute of that oxygen upon which animal life 
 depends, works to and fro with the tide, and certainly 
 does effectually bar the mouth of the river to the 
 passage of fish. Until this state of matters is remedied 
 no salmon could pass up or down, say, during two 
 months August and September. But the same is the 
 case, owing to sheer want of water, in many excellent 
 salmon rivers. Relief comes in October, the wettest 
 month in the year ; and if it should prove the case, as
 
 MAY 145 
 
 my impression is it will, that the Thames is already 
 accessible during ten months for salmon as high as 
 Teddington Weir, then the time is at hand when action 
 may be taken hopefully ; subject, of course, to the 
 understanding that the Conservancy see their way to 
 providing passes over the weirs. 
 
 Meanwhile, salmon or no salmon, the whole com- 
 munity owe the conservators and the County Council 
 a deep debt of gratitude for the example they have set 
 to other administrative bodies in restoring the purity 
 of the river. What has been effected in the Thames, 
 loaded with a population of five or six millions, may 
 surely be undertaken in the Clyde, the Mersey, and 
 the shamefully polluted rivers of Yorkshire. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 ' Any duffer can catch a salmon,' one hears the super- 
 cilious chalk-stream artist observe with some- 
 thing approaching a sneer, and the truth of 
 the observation could not be called in question if 
 ' may ' were substituted for ' can.' For, whereas a man 
 might as hopefully set out to catch a London sparrow 
 with his hands in the street as to attempt, without 
 some practice in the craft, to beguile a two-pound trout 
 in the Itchen with the dry fly, every salmon-fisher 
 knows by what flukes salmon are sometimes brought 
 to their doom. For instance, a certain well-experienced 
 angling friend of mine, coming towards the close of a 
 long day, during which he had carefully and fruitlessly
 
 146 HARLING 
 
 combed that excellent beat which is numbered Seven 
 on the Thurso, laid down his rod in despair at the 
 tail of the Sauce Pool after fishing it six times over. 
 Leaving the line trailing in the water, he bade his 
 gillie take down the gear and prepare for home. The 
 gillie, without lifting the rod, began drawing in the line 
 hand over hand ; at that moment a salmon seized the 
 fly the angler the rod and, in a few minutes, a 
 sixteen-pound spring fish was gasping on the bank. 
 
 In spite of this and similar incidents that may come 
 to anybody's mind, salmon-fishing is an art, and the 
 greater plunder will fall to the rod of the best artist. 
 But there is one branch of salmon-fishing, known as 
 ' harling,' wherein all grades of proficients and tiros 
 are brought to a common level, so far, at least, as 
 concerns raising and hooking fish. Up to that point 
 the only skill and knowledge necessary are displayed 
 by the boatmen. 
 
 Harling. then, is a method of angling to which no 
 sportsman who wants to get the keenest pleasure out of 
 the capture of salmon will resort unless he is driven to 
 it, and the only conditions which drive him to it are the 
 volume and weight of a river too mighty for casting. 
 In Scotland there is, practically, only one river on such 
 a scale the Tay, to wit, where harling had its origin 
 and is still practised, though not nearly to such an 
 extent as formerly. Men prefer casting the fly where 
 cast it may be, because it is only in casting that 
 the most exquisite sensation in salmon-fishing can be 
 experienced namely, that caused by a fish rising and
 
 MAY 147 
 
 taking hold. Voluptuaries of a philosophic turn, who 
 have been at pains to analyse and compare the quality 
 of various forms of pleasure at the moment of fruition, 
 have been known to declare that there is no thrill so 
 delicious as that conveyed to the angler at the instant 
 a salmon closes his mouth on the fly. It happens, then, 
 that, inasmuch as this supreme moment is eliminated 
 by the process of harling. some profess they would 
 rather not fish at all than go a-harling. 
 
 Howbeit, harling is a pastime not devoid of excite- 
 ment and more placid merits, and in some moods, and 
 at certain parts, of a great river recourse must be had 
 to it, or fishing be left alone. Nobody knows what a 
 really great river is, the rush and the swirl of it, till he 
 is embarked on its surface. It rolls along between 
 towering cliffs, here receiving the waters of one great 
 affluent and there those of another, which have no 
 more apparent effect on its volume than the tribute of 
 a conquered province or two have on the outward 
 splendour of a great ruler. Your two boatmen (one 
 pair of oars could not hold a boat on such a flood) 
 receive you at the top of a long reach. You have 
 brought three rods with you, which, being duly set 
 up and a choice fly attached to each line a Dusty 
 Miller, say, and a Black Dog and a Smith you seat 
 yourself facing the stern, and launch forth into the 
 deep. You let out thirty or forty yards of line from 
 each reel, and arrange the rods, the ends of the butts 
 inserted in holes, on the floor of the boat below your 
 thwart one rod pointing directly over the stern, the
 
 148 HAULING 
 
 other two directed outwards at an easy angle, while the 
 flies trail away in the current, and receive a lifelike 
 motion from the boat. A bight of each line is pulled 
 out from the reel, laid on the thwart, and kept in 
 position by a flat pebble. You have no further concern 
 with rods or flies ; all lies with the boatmen now, who 
 direct their course across the stream, and return again, 
 dropping a few feet lower in each transit. It is cold 
 work in wintry weather ; snarling winds lash you with 
 wisps of sleet or stinging thongs of rain; but the 
 deadliest work is often done in the least kindly 
 weather. If there are fish about, they are pretty sure 
 to be astir, and the excitement keeps the circulation 
 going. 
 
 Far otherwise it often is in jocund May, when the 
 sun blazes bravely in the blue lift. Fish are apt to 
 turn sluggish then ; you may tack and tack again over 
 the likeliest lies, and it may be long before you get a 
 pull. Your eyes and thoughts wander to the enchanting 
 scene around. High on either hand tower well-clad 
 cliffs ; here ridge upon ridge of oaks, the fat buds just 
 bursting from the bronzy boughs; there groves of 
 lance-like larches, feathered with fringes of delicate, 
 exquisite verdure. Riverside lawns there are, too, 
 like that below venerable Stobhall, steeply sloping, 
 starred with myriad primroses, and shaded with great 
 sycamores. 
 
 It is very hot now. It is only awe of your boatmen 
 that restrains you from exchanging your hard thwart 
 for an easier seat on the broad boat-bottom. Besides,
 
 MAY 149 
 
 it is difficult enough to keep awake as it is. The 
 rocking of the boat, the drowsy lapping of the waves, 
 the soft air, the hot sun all dispose almost irresistibly 
 to slumber. Perish the thought ! what lasting remorse 
 if a fish rose while the fisher slept ! Ah ! you were 
 very nearly over that time, nodding heavily forward. 
 You cannot keep your eyes open, you say, in this 
 glare. 
 
 Suddenly one of the pebbles springs off the seat, and 
 falls with a loud rattle on the boards. You are alert 
 on the instant, grasp the bending rod, and, though you 
 have lost the excitement of the rise, you are fast in a 
 heavy fish which is ploughing steadily through the 
 torrent fifty yards away. The boat is paddled into the 
 slack water, the stroke oarsman winds in the lines on 
 the other two rods, and, after the first force of the 
 salmon is spent, you step ashore and play him to the 
 
 Such is harling. You are a little conscious of having 
 played a very minor part in the drama ; and so soon as 
 the river shall have run down to such a level as permits 
 you to discern the various lodges of fish in pool and 
 stream, you will revert to casting, still using the boat 
 as your platform, because, in rivers on this scale, it is 
 only in select spots where the depth of the water per- 
 mits you to cover the likely places from the shore or 
 by wading. Harling, if only second best, is not a bad 
 second at times, by reason of the superior weight of 
 salmon killed in that way.
 
 150 DO SALMON FEED IN FRESH WATER? 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 This is a question of perennial argument among anglers, 
 DO salmon an ^ ^ otn tne J an d naturalists have received 
 ^^^ much food for thought in the parliamentary 
 water? Blue-book lately published by the Scottish 
 Fishery Board, containing the report of a committee of 
 the Edinburgh College of Physicians and Mr. Walter 
 Archer on investigations into the life history of the 
 salmon, 1 has attracted much attention both from 
 naturalists and anglers. It is a severe and impartial 
 examination of the habits of the fish and of the 
 physical changes to which its most important organs 
 are subject during the passage to and from salt and 
 fresh water. Those who are conversant with the 
 methods of science and the scrupulous accuracy which 
 must always distinguish the work of scientific men 
 from the observations of ordinary lovers of nature, will 
 not hesitate to accept the finding of this Edinburgh 
 committee, especially as it coincides on practically 
 every point with the results obtained by Dr. Miescher 
 Russ from the independent study of Rhine salmon. 
 But there is one part of the report which has proved 
 beyond the digestive powers of many good anglers. 
 This is the opinion arrived at on microscopic and 
 biological evidence, that salmon do not and cannot 
 feed during their sojourn in fresh water, because 
 leaving the salt water when, and not before, their 
 tissues are gorged with the nutrition which the fish 
 
 1 Blue-book C. 8787, 1898. Her Majesty 'B Stationery Office.
 
 MAY 151 
 
 went to the sea to obtain, the salmon loses the power of 
 assimilating food, owing to rapid degeneration and 
 sloughing of the epithelial cells on the whole of the 
 digestive tract, whereby the whole stomach becomes 
 absolutely functionless. 
 
 Dr. J. Kingston Barton has written in the Journal 
 of Anatomy and Physiology (vol. xxxiv.) throwing 
 doubt upon some of the conclusions arrived at by the 
 Edinburgh committee. He maintains that the slough- 
 ing and desquamative catarrh is not apparent in the 
 stomachs of salmon freshly caught ; that the epithelium 
 remains perfectly normal in living salmon, even up to 
 the very eve of spawning; and that the Edinburgh 
 physicians were deceived by post-mortem changes 
 which proceed more rapidly in fish than in more 
 highly organised vertebrates. Dr. Barton adduces the 
 result of the microscopic examination of the internal 
 organs of a red male salmon caught in the Fowey in 
 November with the milt ' within a very few weeks of 
 full growth.' He found the epithelium and digestive 
 tract to be perfectly normal, and maintains that this is 
 ' really conclusive of a serious fault in the preparations 
 of the Edinburgh laboratory, and indicates an error in 
 the deduction drawn from them.' But this error does 
 not, in Dr. Barton's opinion, in the least affect the 
 question as it concerns the angler. Dr. Barton is as 
 firmly convinced as Dr. Noel Paton that salmon do 
 not feed in fresh water, but undergo a 'prolonged 
 physiological fast.' Neither does he differ from the 
 explanation offered by the Edinburgh committee of the
 
 152 DO SALMON FEED IN FRESH WATER? 
 
 functional derangement undergone by the salmon on 
 entering upon this period of abstinence. This derange- 
 ment seems to be caused by the diversion of the blood 
 stream from the digestive to the generative organs, 
 of which the first outward effect is manifest in that 
 well-known discoloration which begins to tarnish the 
 brilliant coat of a salmon as soon as he enters a river. 
 Hitherto this has been popularly attributed to the 
 oxydising properties of fresh water ; but that explan- 
 ation leaves out of account the remarkable restoration 
 of lustre which takes place in the scales of kelts soon 
 after spawning and before returning to the sea. This 
 is now shown to be the consequence of the reversion 
 of the circulation to its normal course, the consequent 
 restoration of the stomach, gall, and liver to functional 
 activity, renewing appetite for food, and causing the 
 salmon to hasten back to the sea, where alone its 
 hereditary intuition informs it that a good store of 
 provender can be obtained. 
 
 ' Yes/ argues the incredulous angler, ' but if kelts do 
 not feed regularly in fresh water, how can you account 
 for well-mended kelts fish which were miserably attenu- 
 ated immediately after spawning, and yet recover in 
 girth and shape before re-entering the sea ? ' 
 
 To this puzzle, also, the Edinburgh committee have 
 supplied a solution. They do not deny that regenera- 
 tion may proceed so far, especially in kelts that are 
 hindered from getting back to the sea, that the fish may 
 take what food is offered to it, although it is contrary 
 to the known habits of the kelt salmon to rove in
 
 MAY 153 
 
 search of food. When he gets hungry, he sets off for 
 the sea, where he knows there is good store of pro- 
 vender. But they show that the recovery of a kelt in 
 vigour and shape is due to a fact not previously made 
 known. In almost every female salmon, it seems, a 
 greater or less number of ova remain unshed in the 
 abdomen after spawning. As the stomach begins to 
 recover its proper functions, these ova are gradually 
 digested, and the nourishment they contain goes to 
 restore the bodily vigour of the fish. 
 
 Such, briefly, are the chief points on which this 
 remarkable Blue-book throws light, confirming the 
 conclusion to which many salmon-anglers have been 
 driven of late years, namely, that salmon do not feed 
 in fresh water. But against the scientific evidence 
 many practical anglers advance the undoubted fact 
 that salmon in fresh water do take and swallow worms, 
 minnows, and other edible objects. They will take a 
 natural boiled prawn, and reject the closest imitation. 
 A few weeks ago, I had practical experience of this. 
 Having, with five others, secured a long lease of the 
 river Cree for angling purposes, and having rented and 
 put an end to all netting, I was fishing one of the 
 upper beats on a fine May morning. The water was 
 very heavy too heavy for fly but I secured four nice 
 salmon. The opposite bank upon this beat was still 
 under lease, which would not expire till Whitsunday, 
 and upon that bank was the tenant of the fishing. 
 He was dangling a huge bunch of worms in a quiet 
 corner of a rocky cauldron, and, under my very nose,
 
 154 DO SALMON FEED IN FKESH WATEE 1 
 
 as it were, pulled out eight spring fish. What do they 
 take them for if not to eat ? Well, it must be confessed 
 that there is a difficulty in explaining this ; but I do 
 not consider the two facts the inability to digest, and 
 the capricious readiness to swallow at all irreconcil- 
 able. They cannot, indeed, be irreconcilable, because 
 they co-exist. The simplest solution is probably the 
 true one namely, that even a physiological fast is 
 compatible with occasional and irregular impulses of 
 appetite, which exactly corresponds with the well- 
 known capriciousness of salmon in taking any lure ; 
 that the loss of digestive power does not necessarily 
 imply suspension of the senses of smell and taste, thus 
 accounting for the preference of a real prawn to a 
 sham one ; and that such digestible substances as greed, 
 spasms of appetite, or predatory habit cause the salmon 
 to swallow objects which cannot be digested in the 
 existing state of the stomach, and must be rejected. 
 
 Incidentally Dr. Kingston Barton brings out one very 
 interesting fact in the habits of the salmon. In the 
 course of 1899 he examined nearly two hundred salmon, 
 and the contents of their stomachs. In one of these 
 he found the stomach distended with six full-grown 
 herrings. That nearest the mouth had scarcely changed 
 in appearance, the others were in a graduated state of 
 digestion down to the sixth, of which only the spinal 
 column remained. The remarkable feature is to be 
 noted that all these fish had been swallowed tail fore- 
 most !
 
 MAY 155 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 A correspondent, a watchful observer of wild life, 
 asks me whether there is any cause known Nightin- 
 for the preference shown by nightingales for gales 
 oak woods as compared with beech. He has noticed 
 that the song of nightingales is never heard among 
 the beech groves near his residence in Surrey, but 
 that they abound among the oaks there. Probably 
 in food supply, the dominant motive in all bird move- 
 ments, is to be found the true reason. Nightingales 
 are wholly insectivorous, picking up most of their food 
 on the ground, and are believed to feed their young 
 entirely on caterpillars; moreover, there is very little 
 undergrowth in a beech wood. Oaks, on the other 
 hand, are the favourite nurseries of numerous larvae, 
 and their shade is not hurtful to plants of humbler 
 growth, which afford food for caterpillars of various 
 species. It does not seem difficult, therefore, to solve 
 the mystery of the attraction which oaks possess for 
 nightingales.
 
 June 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 IT would be very difficult to improve on foreign guide- 
 books ; Murray. Baedeker, and Joanne there 
 Through ' 
 
 Touraine is very little to choose between them, and 
 the amount of historical and topographical 
 information stowed into a pocketful is nothing short 
 of encyclopaedic. Nevertheless, there are some things 
 which, though it would be unreasonable to expect 
 them in a guide-book, become of moment directly the 
 railway is exchanged for the highway and the bicycle. 
 In such a hackneyed district as the valley of the lower 
 Loire say between Orleans and Sauinur it matters 
 not whether the railway traveller begins to explore it 
 from the east or the west. But to the cyclist it makes 
 all the difference in the world. He must begin in the 
 west and work up-stream ; thereby securing the favour 
 of that steady, gentle wind which, in May and June, 
 almost incessantly blows in from the Atlantic. With 
 this precaution, perhaps, there is no land which so 
 completely fulfils the cyclist's ideal three R's roads, 
 ruins, and restaurants as Touraine, where the high 
 roads have a surface as of brown holland or fawn satin,
 
 JUNE 157 
 
 chateaux are as thickly strewn as castles on the Rhine, 
 and good wine flows as freely as it did for the monks 
 of Thelema or the Three Musketeers. 
 
 There are two seasons when Touraine is at its fairest 
 early summer and mid summer. At Whitsuntide one 
 cannot expect the feast of colour, the mellow skies, 
 the animated movement of the vintage ; but in their 
 place, there are pure, cool mornings, all-pervading 
 verdure, and infinite variety of flowering trees, shrubs, 
 and herbs. Our own county councils might take a 
 leaf from the books of certain French departments and 
 communes which display good judgment in their 
 choice of wayside trees. Take, for example, the road 
 from Tours to Azay-le-Rideau, by way of Ballan. Ten 
 miles of it lie across a monotonous plateau of corn 
 and vine land ; but on each side of the road elms have 
 been planted, with a crimson horse chestnut after every 
 ninth elm. The lovely blossoms of these trees are 
 greater favourites in Touraine than the white-flowered 
 species which prevails in England; and another exquisite 
 tree is the rose-coloured Robinia, or, as we call it, 
 Acacia, which, though quite hardy in Britain, is very 
 rarely seen there. The Wistaria is past its best by the 
 end of May, but the glorious Paulonia repeats the same 
 tint and provides pyramids of delicate lavender hue, 
 deliciously scented. It is only after a mild winter like 
 last (1897-8) that this tree (which grows, but scarcely 
 flowers, in England) can furnish a display. The flower- 
 buds are put forth in autumn, and severe frost destroys 
 them.
 
 158 THROUGH TOURAINE ON TYRES 
 
 Of the chateaux on the Loire and its tributaries 
 there is little purpose in writing : the visitors' books in 
 each bear witness to the steady stream of English and 
 Americans which pass their portals year by year. 
 Perhaps Chaumont is the one which is least often 
 visited, yet many will be found to give it the palm 
 among them all. It lacks the sensuous languor of 
 Chenonceaux and Azay-le-Rideau, is without the blood- 
 curdling associations of Amboise and Blois, has none of 
 the colossal ineptitude of Chambord, and does not 
 cumber the ground with vast ruins like Chinon. Built 
 on a towering cliff on the left bank of the Loire, just 
 where the river sweeps widely from south to west, this 
 fine structure .of Philibert de 1'Orme very closely 
 resembles in plan the Scottish Caerlaverock. There 
 are, for instance, the same pair of jumelle gate towers 
 with drawbridge and portcullis between, behind which 
 is the ample triangular courtyard, with ample round 
 corner towers, the windows of the dwelling rooms 
 giving full upon the sunny enclosure. Formerly the 
 triangle was complete, as at Caerlaverock, but in 1739 
 the proprietor pulled down the western face furthest 
 from the entrance ; and thus, by securing a magnificent 
 prospect of the river and rich champaign and forest 
 beyond it, rendered Chaumout one of the most charm- 
 ing country houses that could be imagined. 
 
 Here, as elsewhere, in this land of noble dwell- 
 ings, the hand of the renovator has been over-busy, 
 scraping away the lovely ptarmigan grey which the 
 splendid stone of the district assumes with age, and
 
 JUNE 159 
 
 restoring its original surface of dazzling ivory. Some 
 of the tapestries which hang within doors at Chaumont 
 may scarcely be rivalled elsewhere, notably those in 
 Catherine de' Medici's bedroom, with marvellous shades 
 of red, rose, and pink the hues most seldom preserved 
 in perfection in ancient fabrics and tissues. 
 
 But this is venturing upon the province of guide- 
 books. Let me rather make mention of matters they 
 make no note of the living beauties of the field and 
 wood and roadside. Birds, so sorely persecuted in 
 winter, abound along the Loire in summer. During 
 a ride on the left bank from Amboise to Blois, I 
 reckoned that for several miles there was one nightin- 
 gale singing in every hundred yards. The brightest of 
 the finches the goldfinch was pretty frequent, a pair 
 of hoopoes displayed their quaint attire, a redbacked 
 shrike sat on the telegraph wire, deeply depressed by 
 pangs of guilty conscience; blackbirds and thrushes 
 sang in the oak copse ; magpies, jays, a sparrowhawk, and 
 a solitary carrion crow represented the criminal classes, 
 while elegant little terns and vivacious ringed plover 
 flitted about the sand banks in the river. Further on, 
 near Beaugency, a remarkable company of six lesser 
 grey shrikes were busy among the poplars, where, no 
 doubt, they found good store of puss and kitten cater- 
 pillars. Crowds of bullfrogs, with tepid water awash 
 upon their backs, croaked their content with matters 
 in general, viewed from a marshy standpoint, and 
 exactly expressed the cyclist's sentiments as, with a 
 strong westerly breeze astern and a bright sun over-
 
 160 THROUGH TOURAINE ON TYRES 
 
 head, he sped along this consummate highway, enjoy- 
 ing the best imitation of flight which apterous biped 
 can ever realise. 
 
 Not the least advantage of cycling over railroad 
 travel is the power to stop when you will. Many a 
 village has a church worth looking into, generally 
 wholly or in part of Norman work, such as would make 
 a whole English county famous in antiquarian or 
 architectural circles ; and, of course, all the churches are 
 open. Why is this not so in England ? Are we ashamed 
 of their ugliness ? or have we more reason to suspect 
 'Arry of felonious intent than Antoine or Auguste ? 
 
 In one respect we are entitled to claim advantage 
 over our French neighbours. Whitsuntide trippers 
 greatly favour the bicycle in France as much as in 
 England. But our lady cyclists rarely disfigure them- 
 selves by the atrocious knickerbockers which French- 
 women seem to think indispensable. The knicker- 
 bocker or Zouave unmentionable might be rendered 
 picturesque or even graceful if it were brought as high 
 on the body as the male wears his trousers; but to 
 preserve a long-pinched waist with bifurcated attire 
 is only to ensure the disastrous effect of a huge 
 unwinged insect. 
 
 It was gratifying to hear this impression confirmed 
 by a withered old woman wearing the ordinary blue 
 cotton gown and white cap of the peasantry. Standing 
 in the street of an out-of-the-way village as an English 
 lady rode by with well-cut petticoats, she observed to 
 her gossip, ' Mille fois plus joli ya que le pantalon.'
 
 JUNE 161 
 
 The researches of the Spanish physiologist, Ramon 
 of Cajal, have lately elucidated the structure of acer- 
 of the human brain, a marvellously minute fly" 1 
 and complicated machinery, whereby every experience 
 is converted into a reminiscence. Death or disease 
 alone can destroy the impression. It is there, and the 
 effort of memory consists merely in directing a force, 
 probably a streamlet of blood, to the spot where the 
 impression is stored ; forgetting is the inability to 
 distinguish that spot amid myriads of others. A 
 mayfly Ephemera the creature of a summer day 
 a single image amid countless companies of its 
 fellows is perhaps an object less calculated to make a 
 lasting impression than most others in this crowded 
 world. Even a midge so it plants its proboscis in 
 the right place may raise its own monument, and be 
 remembered beyond the setting of many suns ; but a 
 mayfly might surely flutter past, innocuous and un- 
 noticed, and never obtain place in the recollections of a 
 wayfarer. Yet has an individual of this race type of 
 all that is light and fleeting fixed itself more firmly in 
 my memory than many other things which it would be 
 more profitable to bear in mind. 
 
 The vine-dressers of the Loire were losing all heart 
 about their prospects. May had been miserable ; June 
 had opened joyless; the vines were not pushing in at 
 all satisfactory form. All morning ragged rain-clouds 
 had swept from the west over the grey town of Blois ; 
 L
 
 162 OF A CERTAIN MAYFLY 
 
 it was latish in the afternoon before the wind veered a 
 little, the rain abated, and the sun shone out. We rode 
 out to explore the forest of Blois, not, like John Evelyn, 
 ' to see if we could meete any wolves, which are here in 
 such numbers that they often come and take children 
 out of the very streetes ; yet will not the Duke, who is 
 soveraigne here, permite them to be destroy'd ' : nor, 
 like Evelyn and his companions, on stout hackneys, 
 but on humble 'bikes,' as English travellers now do 
 most wisely use. The forest is like many another in 
 France pleasing as an example of skilful woodcraft, 
 whereby, owing to the value of firewood, no chip or 
 fallen stick is permitted to rot where it falls disap- 
 pointing by reason of the number and breadth of 
 street-like roads driven through it. But it is all of 
 oak, beloved of nightingales, which sing all day in 
 green twilight of the aisles. 
 
 After paying our respects to the tree called Louis 
 xiv., fondly revered by the Blesois as the largest oak 
 in France, though there are certainly greater ones in 
 Fontainebleau, we rode forward to the western verge of 
 the forest. Here the land falls sharply away into the 
 valley of the Cisson, the road descending in a series of 
 long gradients, engineered, one would say, for the 
 special behoof of ' coasting ' cyclists. A lovely vale it 
 is : flowery meadows too flowery, perhaps, to produce 
 a high quality of hay lined off with rows of rustling 
 aspens, their satiny, eau-de-Nil bark in delicious, 
 subdued contrast to the green, velvet prairie; here a 
 hamlet clustering round a Norman church tower
 
 JUNE 163 
 
 with added fleche of the Flamboyant age ; there an 
 immemorial mill, squat, moss-grown, and so crazy 
 that it is a marvel its perpetual ' clack-clack ' does 
 not shake it to pieces; again a gentleman's maison 
 de campagne, white-shuttered, shaggy-lawned, with a 
 glorious Paulonia strewing its purple blossoms on 
 the red gravel drive, and filling all the grove with 
 fragrance. 
 
 Set children at liberty in any place, and if there is 
 pond or running brook at hand, it is by the side thereof 
 that you will find them when you want them. So the 
 cyclist not the scorcher or the record-breaker, mark 
 you, but the leisurely loiterer whom these contemn will 
 inevitably dismount on every bridge he crosses, to peer 
 into the current. If the said cyclist is, in his worthier 
 aspect, also a trout-fisher, I defy him to come to such 
 a stream as the Cisson without emotion. A lucid, 
 brimming current, of the volume of the Itchen at 
 Chilland, tarrying here in placid reaches among the 
 bending flowers, hurrying there noiselessly with long 
 tresses of water-crowfoot waving in its liberal bosom ; 
 no tumult, no violence, nor any stagnation, exactly the 
 varying, moderate speed of which the dry-fisher knows 
 so well how to make use. A rise ! yonder, beside that 
 bunch of yellow rattle just the little dimple that a 
 good trout makes in sipping at a floating fly. O ! for 
 my trusty splitcane, far away in over-fished England. 
 There ! he rises again, and another higher up. What 
 fly are they taking ? 
 
 At that moment a mayfly a veritable green drake,
 
 164 THE HOLLY 
 
 more yellow, it seems, than his British cousins fluttered 
 down upon the stream a few yards above the bridge. 
 Its voyage was short ; just as it floated over a little ripple 
 above a cushion of weed, a dark, shining nose broke 
 the surface, Ephemera disappeared, and a broad yellow 
 gleam shone through the flood. Tantalus! what 
 pangs were mine ! For many kilometres we followed 
 that fair stream, nor saw a single fisher, fair or foul, 
 though trout were rising in every reach. Near London 
 such a brook would command a rent of 100 a mile : 
 the Blesois, it seems, have yet to learn what foolish 
 folks will pay as the price of their folly. 
 
 De minimis John Evelyn, in a robuster age, brought 
 home from Blois forest the remembrance of ' a gentle- 
 man, who was resting himselfe under a tree, with his 
 horse grazing by him, who told us that, halfe an houre 
 before, two wolves had set upon his horse, and had in 
 probability devour'd him, but for a dog which lay by 
 him.' I, closing my eyes, behold, as the chief event of 
 a day in the same forest, a fragile fly, a trout's nose, 
 and a gleam of gold in the fleeting Cisson. 
 
 XL 
 
 The flowers of the holly are individually incon- 
 spicuous, and are seldom produced in such 
 abundance as to attract much notice collec- 
 tively ; but this year (1899) they have formed quite a 
 notable feature in the landscape. Hollies are naturally 
 abundant in Hertfordshire, and many fine ones adorn 
 the field and roadside hedges near St. Albans. A few
 
 JUNE 165 
 
 weeks ago some of these were hoary with innumerable 
 small white blossoms. It will be interesting to note 
 whether these are followed by an unusually heavy crop 
 of berries, 1 or whether, like other fruits, they have been 
 destroyed by the unseasonable cold of early June. Of 
 course, as most people know, the holly is a dioecious 
 plant, bearing flowers of different sexes on separate 
 trees, and that it is only on trees of the feminine 
 gender that the berries appear. As in the case of the 
 aucuba, one male plant suffices to fertilise the ovaries 
 of a number of females planted near it, the pollen being 
 wind-wafted from one to the others; but, unlike the 
 aucuba, there is no means of distinguishing the sex of 
 the holly before the flowers appear ; planting, therefore, 
 has to be done at haphazard. The female aucuba was 
 known in this country in the variegated form for a 
 century before the male was imported; many people 
 will remember the agreeable surprise which was the 
 result of introducing the latter. The male plants bear 
 plentiful racemes of pollen-bearing flowers. It is only 
 necessary to plant a diminutive male in the vicinity of 
 a group of hitherto uninteresting females to induce 
 these to produce an abundant crop of scarlet berries as 
 large as small olives. The case was just the reverse 
 with the well-known garden shrub Garrya elliptica. 
 In this the male is the more ornamental, from its 
 profusion of tassel-like catkins. It has been long culti- 
 vated in this country, but the female is an introduction 
 of recent years, and I have never met her. 
 
 1 They were not. The crop of berries was not more than average.
 
 166 THE HOLLY 
 
 The disappearance of the holly from the woods and 
 natural wilds of many parts of these islands is part of 
 the penalty we have to pay for the presence of the 
 accursed rabbit. The holly sows itself freely, growing 
 vigorously under the drip and shade of other trees, even 
 of the surface-rooting beech, which stifles almost every 
 other kind of undergrowth ; but it possesses an irre- 
 sistible attraction for rabbits; seedlings and young 
 plants are devoured bodily ; mature trees even of three 
 and four feet in girth are liable to be barked and killed ; 
 and thus one of the most exquisite ornaments of our 
 woodlands has well nigh passed from us, except where 
 laborious means are adopted to protect the plants. John 
 Evelyn waxed enthusiastic over the holly, so abundant 
 in his day on the Surrey hills : 
 
 ' But, above all the natural Greens, which enrich our home- 
 born store, there is none certainly to be compar'd to our 
 Holly, insomuch as I have often wonder'd at our curiosity 
 after forreign Plants, and expensive difficulties, to the neglect 
 of the culture of this vulgar but incomparable tree. Is there 
 under Heaven a more glorious and refreshing object of the 
 kind than an impregnable Hedge of near three hundred foot 
 in length, nine foot high, and five in diameter; which I can 
 show in my poor Gardens at any time of the year, glitt'ring 
 with its arm'd and vernished leaves 1 the taller Standards at 
 orderly distances, blushing with their natural Coral.' 
 
 The hedge alluded to was not at Wotton, but at 
 Evelyn's other place, Sales Court, Deptford ; and it is 
 on record how it was injured and almost destroyed by 
 the Tsar, Peter the Great, who, when he became tenant
 
 JUNE 167 
 
 of Sales Court, used to amuse himself by trundling 
 his courtiers in barrows down a steep hill into the 
 
 XLI 
 
 For many years past scandal has been busy with the 
 character of one who has been the friend of 
 most of us from childhood the common upon MS 
 rook and now the charges against him have 
 been formulated ; he has been put upon his trial, and, 
 sad to tell, a verdict of guilty on all the counts has 
 been returned in the court of first instance. The 
 defence set up before the Galashiels Farmers' Club in 
 1897 was that the number of rooks in the country had 
 increased so vastly of late years that the supply of 
 their natural food grubs and hurtful insects was no 
 longer sufficient for their maintenance; further, that 
 an inferior bird to the rook, the starling, had been 
 allowed to multiply out of all proportion to its merits, 
 and grievously interfered with the privileges of the 
 rook, by its incessant diligence in pursuit of creeping 
 things. A conviction was obtained, and the rooks of 
 Galashiels were sentenced to undergo the extreme 
 penalty of the law ; but, being a sagacious community, 
 they moved to lands where the writ of Galashiels 
 farmers does not run to Peebles, for instance, and 
 other pleasure resorts. This year (1899), however, pro- 
 ceedings have been taken against the whole race of 
 rooks in Scotland on an extended scale. The farmers
 
 168 THE BOOK UPON HIS TRIAL 
 
 have roused the sporting interest, adducing damning 
 evidence of ravages upon the eggs of game-birds, 
 especially grouse and blackgame. The Border Union 
 Agricultural Society proclaimed a crusade to last for a 
 month ; and within that period, besides harrying nests 
 and destroying eggs and nestlings, 4400 rooks were 
 killed and paid for at the rate of threepence per 
 head. Other agriculture societies have taken up 
 the matter; next spring will probably be one of 
 exemplary vengeance over the greater part of the 
 Lowlands, and already one fancies that there is an 
 additional note of anxiety in Chaucer's 'crow with 
 voice of care.' 
 
 The most devoted lover of birds must admit that the 
 time has come when it is necessary to adopt some 
 repressive measures. The excessive increase of the 
 rook population, to the detriment of other wild species, 
 has been the subject of growing solicitude on the part 
 of those who care for country things ; now that farmers 
 and sportsmen have joined with naturalists in de- 
 manding a check, something effective is pretty sure to 
 be done, and- not a moment too soon. Nobody wants 
 to extirpate the rook; English landscape could not 
 afford to part with its cawing colonies ; but it must be 
 as colonists, and not an army of occupation, that rooks 
 receive their welcome among us. 
 
 The results of some careful experiments conducted 
 by Sir John Gilmour of Montrave, a well-known 
 Scottish agriculturist, have been published lately. Sir 
 John, wishing to ascertain the relative advantage and
 
 JUNE 169 
 
 detriment to farmers in the presence of woodpigeons, 
 starlings, and rooks, undertook a careful and im- 
 partial analysis of their diet at all seasons of the year. 
 Beginning on March 1, 1894, by February 28, 1895 
 he had examined the contents of : 
 
 Males. Females. Total. 
 
 Woodpigeons, . . 143 122 265 
 
 Eooks, ... 167 188 355 
 
 Starlings, . . . 114 76 190 
 
 424 386 810 
 
 Of the woodpigeons, the crops of nineteen were 
 empty, and one was diseased, leaving 245 for examina- 
 tion, which showed : 
 
 Cereal grains, . . . . 33 per cent. 
 
 Leaves, 27 '5 
 
 Fruits and seeds, .... 23 
 
 Roots, . 8-5 
 
 Flowers, , . . . .8 
 
 100 
 
 Inasmuch as the leaves were chiefly those of clover 
 and turnips, it is clear that the mischief done by these 
 woodpigeons to crops far outweighed any benefit 
 conferred by the destruction of weeds. Of the 190
 
 170 THE BOOK UPON HIS TRIAL 
 
 starlings examined, 15 were empty. The remaining 
 175 showed: 
 
 Grubs and insects, . . .70 per cent. 
 
 Grain, . . : . .. : : . 22 
 Miscellaneous, . . . . '' . 8 
 
 100 
 
 Three hundred and fifty-five rooks were found to 
 contain : 
 
 Grubs and insects, . . . .23 per cent. 
 
 Grain, 58 
 
 Miscellaneous, . . . . . 12 
 Roots, . 7 
 
 100 
 
 Most farmers will concur in Professor M' Alpine's 
 finding upon this evidence (Field, May 16, 1896) : ' Of 
 the woodpigeon, it may be said that he is an unmiti- 
 gated scoundrel; of the rook, that he is a cunning 
 rogue ; but of the starling, we can say with truth that 
 he is our natural friend by habit and instinct.' 
 
 XLII 
 
 South-country trout streams present a sorry prospect 
 water to ^ e angler this season (1898). Recent 
 supply ra j n k as (j one nothing to replenish the 
 reservoirs whence they are drawn, though it has sent a
 
 JUNE 171 
 
 passing surface flush down the channel. Chalk streams 
 flow from sources deep in the bosom of the downs, 
 where the rain and melted snow of winter are stored up, 
 to be discharged evenly and slowly through the summer. 
 It is this that gives a chalk stream valley its peculiar 
 charm the contrast of a brimming channel bordered 
 with vigorous growth and unflagging verdure amid the 
 baked and withered uplands on either hand. A chalk 
 stream generally runs brink-high throughout the sum- 
 mer heats ; but this year, be the summer what it may, 
 there can be no generous gush over waving tangle of 
 water plants ; only, in many streams, an oily and 
 scanty meander among mounds of weed and tracts of 
 unlovely mud. The north-country scheme of hydrau- 
 lics is different. Only yesterday, a ' snell ' south-easter 
 drove heavy rain- clouds in from the North Sea, and the 
 burden they discharged upon the Grampians is hurry- 
 ing eastward again to-day under the keel of my boat 
 as I sit ' harling ' on the Tay. But feeding a Hampshire 
 chalk stream not one-hundredth part of the Tay in 
 volume is a far more deliberate process. The supplies 
 of Itchen and Test have to be laid down, like wine, long 
 before they may be enjoyed ; it is the shortage during 
 the last two winters which makes the outlook so serious 
 for the present season. 
 
 In some streams, indeed, the evil is of a more 
 permanent nature. Men multiply so fast that they are 
 drinking up all the water within reach. The Hertford- 
 shire Lea and the Surrey Tillingbourne have been per- 
 manently diminished in volume by the persistent tapping
 
 172 WATER SUPPLY 
 
 of deep springs in the downs to supply the growing 
 wants of towns. 
 
 Well, there is plenty of water in Scotland still, 
 though we have played, and are going to play, some 
 unhandsome tricks with it. Glasgow proudly bears 
 on her shield St. Mungo's salmon, which certainly 
 was caught in the Clyde, but she and her grown- 
 up daughters have so effectually denied that lovely 
 river that no salmon can pass up to Cora Linn and 
 live. When Colonel Thornton visited the Linn in 
 1786, hundreds of salmon were leaping at that im- 
 passable barrier. Glasgow knows better than to drink 
 the Clyde: she possesses an unrivalled reservoir in 
 Loch Katrine ; and her people being, as all men know, 
 mostly temperance folk, drink so much water and so fast 
 that, even now, works are in progress to raise the level 
 of the loch by further five feet, which is tantamount 
 to lowering Ben Venue by so much. Many an acre of 
 purple moorland and silver-stemmed birches will be 
 submerged; Ellen's Isle will be reduced to a mere 
 pimple on the bosom of the lake, and the famous 
 Silver Strand will disappear for ever. Edinburgh, on 
 the other hand, having lapped up every drop in her 
 own watershed, is about to cross the Pentlands and tap 
 the sources of the Tweed. 
 
 Scribbling these notes while seated, as I have 
 explained, in a boat with a couple of rods dragging 
 about enormous flies, I am tempted to wish Glasgow 
 and Edinburgh would temporarily absorb some of the 
 superfluous moisture that renders all modes of fishing
 
 JUNE 173 
 
 except ' harling/ out of the question. Rusticus expectat ! 
 Horace was no salmon-fisher, but how his verse keeps 
 running in one's head while waiting and watching, day 
 after day, for the waters to abate to fair fishing size. 
 In a river on the scale of the Tay it is little use 
 putting up marks to see if ' she ' is waxing or falling. 
 In smaller streams a few hours will make all the 
 difference, but the Tay rolls on day after day with 
 scarcely perceptible change. It is surprising to note 
 how little apparent increase in volume is caused even 
 by the influx of what would be considered by many 
 fishermen a large river. The Isla, an important tribu- 
 tary, deep withal, and so wide that it is spanned 
 by a bridge of five large arches, flows in, and is 
 swallowed by the mother stream, which lumbers along, 
 as if nothing had happened. A couple of miles lower, 
 at the Linn of Campsie, rocks divide the Tay into three 
 or four channels, each of tham not inferior in scale 
 to many a famous salmon-stream. 
 
 Well, 'she's ower big the day, and she's a bad 
 colour, forbye.' There is not much chance of a fish, 
 but there are many less delightful ways of spending 
 a day in Montgomerie's festival of ' the cherrie and the 
 slae ' than being paddled about on the broad expanse of 
 this grand river : 
 
 ' " Behold the Tiber ! " the vain Roman cried, 
 Viewing the ample Tay from Baiglie's side. 
 But where 's the Scot who could the vaunt repay, 
 And hail the puny Tiber for the Tay?' 
 
 The month of May can be much the reverse of
 
 174 WATER SUPPLY 
 
 jocund in these latitudes has been so, in fact, for 
 the last week, dealing ugly buffets from the east, and 
 splashing viciously with icy rain ; but to-day she is all 
 smiles, argent and azure aloft, vert and or dominant 
 in her heraldry below. Towering cliffs rise on either 
 shore, sombre still for the most part, being clad chiefly 
 with oak ; but there are breadths of larchwood too, of 
 tenderest green, frosty display of blackthorn with milky 
 splendour of wild cherries, and here and there a 
 stately sycamore by the waterside, well-leaved and in 
 full flower. Nor is it a flower to be despised, though, 
 being green like the leaves, it is not particularly 
 decorative. 
 
 It is doubtful whether a blind man could always 
 discern the exact season by the odours afloat; but 
 of these there are two which, above all others, con- 
 tribute to the indescribable scent of spring, which 
 we all know and rejoice in. The source of one 
 of these is in the open gorse-blossom to wit. 
 Nobody standing on an English common when the 
 gorse is in bloom could fail, however blind he were, to 
 perceive that spring had come. The other fragrance 
 is of the woodland, and is breathed from the myriad 
 tassels of the sycamore the plane, as we call it incor- 
 rectly in the north. Being from the north myself, 
 I never can associate the plane of London streets 
 and squares the true plane with Arthur dough's 
 beautiful lines on the coming of spring. He surely 
 meant our plane and your sycamore, but sycamore 
 wouldn't scan :
 
 JUNE 175 
 
 Put forth thy leaf, thou lofty plane, 
 
 East winds and cold are safely gone, 
 With radiant suns and gentle rain 
 
 The summer comes serenely on. 
 December days were dark and chill, 
 
 The winds of March were wild and drear ; 
 Aye nearing, aye receding still, 
 
 Spring never would, we thought, be here.' 
 
 Thus much memory afloat ; were I ashore and within 
 reach of reference there were less risk of misquotation. 
 
 Talking of gorse, Bentham, most precise of botanical 
 writers, observes that it is 'rare in the Highlands.' 
 This is scarcely correct; for in some places, notably 
 along the Tay, it abounds, and so right away to John o' 
 Groats and Cape Wrath. But it is true that over large 
 districts in the north its place is taken by the broom, 
 forerunner of the rose as the royal badge of England. 
 Its blossom is more fleeting than the gorse, but it is 
 even more profuse while it lasts. 
 
 Gardeners and garden lovers seem slow to realise the 
 singular beauty of a variety of the common broom 
 which has lately come into the market under the name 
 Cytisus scoparius Andrewsii. In this lovely shrub the 
 standards, or upright petals, are dyed a deep crimson 
 or maroon, contrasting vividly with the rest of the 
 golden corolla. It is as easily grown and as hardy 
 as the common type, and may also be forced into 
 bloom a couple of months before it is due to flower in 
 the open. It makes a brave show in the conservatory, 
 and so little are people acquainted with it that visitors 
 almost invariably ask, ' What is that beautiful exotic ? '
 
 XLIII 
 
 THE unwritten edict, surely the most tyrannical and 
 Town irrational to which suffering man ever bent 
 
 Gardening Mg neckj which decrees that we H. to -do folk 
 might be. W ] 1O h ave spacious country homes shall desert 
 them for at least three of the fairest months in the 
 year, and immure themselves in costly and narrow 
 town quarters that edict, I say, seems so immutable, 
 that it is wisest to accept it, and render it as endurable 
 as possible. 
 
 Nothing less than the precession of the equinoxes 
 can ever render London an open-air city. That Queen's 
 weather, which made the Jubilee summers of 1887 
 and 1897 memorable among decades of fitful or 
 adverse seasons, would enable us, could we count on 
 it, to give ourselves al fresco airs, to line our 
 pavements with cafe" chairs, to dine and sup under the 
 stars, and use our houses only for work or sleep ; but, as 
 things are, we have to pay the penalty of disregarding 
 the obvious lesson of Nature ; so long as we persist in 
 swarming into London when it is least habitable, instead
 
 JULY 177 
 
 of putting off our work and amusement there till 
 winter, when coal fires make the town comfortable. 
 
 The first hot days, and we are quoting graceful Mr. 
 Lang : 
 
 ' Friend, with the fops while we dawdle here, 
 Then comes in the sweet o' the year ! 
 And the summer runs out like grains of sand, 
 When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand.' 
 
 Ebbene ! if we can't end it we might surely mend it, 
 by importing summer finery in more liberal measure 
 into our streets. Window boxes why are they so few ? 
 Partly because people who take a house for a few weeks 
 or months often grudge the expense of furnishing such 
 boxes. The mode prescribes table decoration on a 
 liberal and costly scale; many a dinner-table is deco- 
 rated at a price that would fill every window of the street 
 front with flowers ; flowers, too, that would give pleasure, 
 not for a couple of hours to a score of indifferent guests, 
 who care more for the plats than the parterre, but to 
 every dweller in the house and to every passer-by in 
 the street; flowers that would not wither in a night, 
 and add to the morning's mass of decaying refuse, but 
 living flowers that would flourish till the autumn frosts, 
 each green leaf doing its work in sweetening the atmo- 
 sphere for a million pairs of lungs. Be it far from any 
 one to discourage the flower trade : may it long flourish 
 pretty and prosperous ! Only, if there is money to 
 spend on it, shall it all be on flowers for a night, and 
 not part of it on flowers for a season ? From my writing- 
 table I have view of about twenty-four homes across 
 M
 
 178 TOWN GAKDENING AS IT MIGHT BE 
 
 my flowerless sill, in some of which I have partaken 
 of liberal hospitality at tables laden with lovely flowers. 
 But only two out of these two dozen houses display 
 growing flowers in the windows. Fashion is con- 
 veniently impersonal ; let us lay the blame on her, and 
 reflect if we could not get more lasting enjoyment out 
 of our flower bills for ourselves and, less selfishly, for 
 the man in the street. 
 
 Much as may be got out of window gardening, there 
 is still more to be made out of our areas. In window- 
 boxes the plants are popped out in full flower, and the 
 wayfarer cannot mark his calendar by burgeoning bud 
 and lengthening spray. It is the exception to see any 
 of the green things of the earth trained against the 
 dreary leagues of brick and stucco of western London, 
 unless it be the American mock-vine Ampelopsis or 
 Virginian creeper. That vigorous climber is certainly 
 something to be grateful for, so bravely does it thrive 
 in the alternation of torrid drought and noxious vapour 
 which constitutes London climate; in autumn, when 
 all the gay people have fled, it veils with its long tresses 
 many an ugly object. But it is very late in habit; 
 often, as happened this year (1898), the last sands of 
 leafy June are running out before the mock-vine spreads 
 its green mantle. There are other good things, hardly 
 less patient of London air, for training on house fronts, 
 which one very seldom sees. Roses, honeysuckle, even 
 ivy, must be despaired of; these, and many other fair 
 things, cannot endure the scorching of the sun refracted 
 from walls and pavement. Here and there, indeed,
 
 JULY 179 
 
 ivy may succeed, but, as a rule, all evergreens are 
 hopeless. 
 
 But if you -want unfailing summer verdure, plant a 
 fig-tree in your area ; the hotter the summer, the fresher 
 spread the splendid leaves, purifying the air for many 
 yards around the best of all Cockney trees of lowly 
 growth. The common laburnum, too, is a charming 
 wall shrub for a town ; two only I know of in London 
 one in Belgrave Square, another in Grosvenor Square 
 and though I have not the privilege of acquaintance 
 with their owners, year after year, as regularly as May 
 comes round, I bless them for these pretty trees. 
 
 Magnolias most magnificent of flowering trees 
 seem not to have been tried, but there is little doubt, 
 seeing how well they flourish as standards in Hyde 
 Park, at Kew, Syon House, and elsewhere near the 
 metropolis, that they would lend themselves to wall 
 decoration. Only it must not be the evergreen species, 
 M. grandiflora, but such deciduous kinds as Exo- 
 niensis, with chalice of ivory-white ; purple-stained 
 Soulangeana, or the myriad blooming parviflora. The 
 Persian lilac is a good area plant, though I have only 
 seen it once grown in that position again in Grosvenor 
 Square. The scientific name of the lilac is Syringa, 
 but among the shrubs we commonly call syringa in 
 English the white-flowered Philadelphus are some 
 species which it is almost certain would thrive in 
 town, as they do in suburban gardens. The rarer and 
 more robust species should be chosen Philadelphus 
 grandiflorus and Gordonianus which are simply
 
 180 TOWN GARDENING -AS IT MIGHT BE 
 
 splendid at midsummer in their wreaths of fragrant, 
 waxy bloom. 
 
 Of the effect of town life on the worthier species of 
 clematis I cannot speak with confidence. There is a 
 very large plant of some kind of clematis, apparently 
 the white-flowered, odorous C. montana, on the side of 
 Dover House facing the Horse Guards Parade ; but it is 
 pruned so closely every year that it never flowers, and 
 this is a kind that flowers only upon the growth of the 
 previous year an important characteristic to remember 
 in dealing with flowering shrubs of that nature. Many 
 a fine Banksia rose I have seen defrauded of its display 
 of blossom, simply because it has been tightly pruned 
 like a hybrid-perpetual, which flowers on the young 
 shoot. The common white jasmine is another climber 
 which should never feel the knife, save to thin out, not 
 to shorten, the stems. 
 
 The white acacia, more correctly Robinia pseud- 
 acacia, one of the best and surest trees for street 
 planting, might be used with good effect for training 
 on the wall of a town house. None has more lovely 
 foliage, none bears greater abundance of flowers, nor 
 carries them for a longer period. The rose-coloured 
 species (Robinia hispida) is even freer to blossom, and 
 is a very beautiful plant, but I fancy the sticky hairs 
 which cover the young shoots would get clogged with 
 smuts to the injury of its vigour. 
 
 The most beautiful area plant of all is one that 
 unluckily flowers too late to decorate London streets 
 during the season ; but if anybody wants to realise the
 
 JULY 181 
 
 extraordinary beauty of Hibiscus Syriacus (also called 
 Althaea frutex), let him wander down Cheyne Walk 
 some September evening. Needless to mention the 
 number of the house ; afar off he will see a cascade of 
 lovely blossom a shrub some seven feet high, bearing 
 on every twig large flowers, white, with a claret satin 
 on every petal. This is only one variety of this choice 
 mallow- wort, which revels in all the sunbake it can 
 get; you can have it, if such be your pleasure, with 
 delicate lavender flowers, or pure white, or rose- 
 coloured. 
 
 In the same neighbourhood, to wit, within the lately 
 renovated Apothecaries' Physic Garden in Chelsea, may 
 be seen a magnificent specimen of the Wistaria sinensis, 
 showing how nobly this magnificent climber will thrive, 
 even in the climate of London. Yet of all the myriad 
 house fronts within the radius of a mile of this spot, I 
 can only point to one, besides my own, upon which a 
 Wistaria has been planted. 
 
 The last wall plant that I shall mention as suitable 
 for London is, strange to say, a conifer. Strange, 
 because one might attempt to grow pineapples in Franz 
 Josef Land or mangoes in Labrador as hopefully as any 
 of the fir tribe in London, except the Salisburia. It is 
 a deciduous pine with leaves like a gigantic maidenhair 
 fern. It wants the protection of a wall in London, for 
 the upper branches die back poisoned when grown as 
 a standard witness the specimen which stretches over 
 the wall of the Apothecaries' Garden, or another, equally 
 tall, beside the main street of malodorous Brentford.
 
 182 ON A HIGHLAND LOCH 
 
 Trained on a wall, the quaint Salisburia affords a cover- 
 ing as interesting as it is beautiful, and, unlike every 
 other resinous plant, does not seem to resent ce fa- 
 meux fog londonien, qu'on ne coupe pas precisdment 
 d'un couteau, mais qu'on peut prendre a la cuiller. 
 
 XLIV 
 
 Physical enjoyment owes much of its zest to contrast 
 on a High- ^ e transition from humdrum to lively 
 land Loch from appetite to gratification from crowd to 
 solitude from wood-pavement to heather or meadow- 
 grass. The mildew of monotony destroys the keenest 
 pleasure ; in no respect has civilisation wrought more 
 potent effect than in rendering easy sudden change of 
 environment. Thus it came to pass one sweltering after- 
 noon in July that, elbowing my way through the throng 
 of Cheapside, I was buoyed by the almost incredible 
 certainty that within four-and-twenty hours I should 
 be seven hundred miles away, in the great archipelago 
 of the West the realm of the Lord of the Isles. 
 London folk were fussing at the prospect of a water 
 famine; nevertheless, I packed my fishing-gear that 
 afternoon in serene confidence born of long acquaint- 
 ance with West Highland skies, which are wont to 
 drop fatness in no niggardly measure. One of the 
 chief merits of an infatuation for angling is the intense 
 interest it imparts to meteorological prospects. 
 
 Sure enough, a welcome signal hung from the hill- 
 brow as the yacht steamed steadily through the
 
 JULY 183 
 
 narrows and opened the long vista of Loch Nevis. In 
 a dark, rocky cleft scarring the green mountain, 
 gleamed a silver thread, sure token this, that in the 
 glen five hundred feet below, the river was in fishing 
 trim. There had been rain, then ; and here rain in 
 July means grilse and sea-trout for all whom it may 
 concern, and a ' happening fish ' an odd salmon or two. 
 
 It was half-past six before we picked up our moor- 
 ings ; a boat was going ashore at once, and there was 
 time to secure a fish course for dinner on board. By 
 seven o'clock I stood beside the Cruive Pool where in 
 the old bad days the fish were intercepted in their run 
 threading the line with trembling fingers along the 
 trusty split-cane. The summer spate was well nigh 
 spent, but there was ' a drop in her ' still, and trout 
 were rising in the dark run under the alders. 
 
 How little people understand the charm of Scottish 
 climate who defer their visit till August or September, 
 when the evenings shorten apace and grow chill ! The 
 true sweet o' the year comes in the mid-months of 
 summer, when the light lingers long in the northern 
 sky, when the deep meadow grass is full of humming 
 things and starred with pink-and- white orchis, golden 
 bog asphodel, globe-flower, and forget-me-not. The air 
 is brisk, but warm; plant growth is just at the 
 crescendo which preludes maturity and decay ; and as 
 for sea-trout fishing, nobody knows that delicate sport 
 who has not practised it in July, because it is in that 
 month only that the big fellows, from two to six 
 pounds, pass up the rivers, and may be taken in the
 
 184 ON A HIGHLAND LOCH 
 
 prime lustre of their silvery mail. Later you may 
 overtake a few of them in the upper reaches and 
 inland lochs, but their brilliancy is then tarnished, and 
 the dark skin seems to belong to a different species 
 from the fairy-like creature which left the tide. 
 
 To-night, in the short hour at my disposal, nothing 
 noteworthy occurs. In this pool, the nearest in the 
 river to the sea, the big fellows have not tarried ; it is 
 tenanted by a shoal of finnocks herlings, as they are 
 called further south the grilse stage of the sea-trout, 
 lovely bright little fish averaging half a pound; and 
 half-a-dozen of these reappear a little later as a savoury 
 fry on the dinner- table of the yacht. To-morrow 
 ah ! who shall tell about the morrow ? The river runs 
 out very fast; without more rain little will be done 
 there to-morrow, and the sky to west and north wears 
 an undesirably serene aspect. 
 
 When the morrow came the signal cascade had dis- 
 appeared from the hill, whereby I knew that the river 
 was too low for much sport. To my bow, however, 
 there were two strings. The river runs out of a loch, 
 on the loch is a boat, and in the loch store of salmon 
 and sea-trout. Thither I wended my way, four miles 
 up the glen. 
 
 Ah ! such a glen. On either side tower the great 
 hills, those on the south side still draped with gracious 
 woodland, planted by no human hand. There is not a 
 house in sight, nor sign of human creature, save the 
 bridle path, and here and there a wooden bridge across 
 the river. Yet there is never silence there always the
 
 JULY 185 
 
 sound of falling water from a hundred streams hurry- 
 ing to the sea. To-day the wood resounds with a 
 querulous cry ; an eaglet, which has just left the eyrie 
 on a crag among the birch-trees, yelps impatiently for 
 food, and presently one of his broad-winged parents 
 soars circling round the summit, a mere speck against 
 the azure. It stoops lower and lower, till, with a final 
 swoop, it alights near the nestling, and the cry is 
 stilled. As far, however, as I can make out through the 
 glass, the old eagle brought nothing but its own presence 
 to satisfy the impatience of its offspring. 
 
 Now loch-fishing, to be practised in perfection, should 
 be done from the bank or by wading. The rush of the 
 good fish from the shallow to the deep water loses half 
 its hazard, and therefore half its excitement, when the 
 angler can follow it in a boat. I was resolved, there- 
 fore, to trust to my legs, and, in starting, alluded dis- 
 paragingly to ' any duffer ' who cared to fish from a 
 boat. But four miles on this blazing morning seemed 
 to carry one to a different standpoint. It is not re- 
 freshing to bury perspiring limbs in stuffy waders ; the 
 water rippled attractively against the side of the boat ; 
 suppose I were to try a drift first, and take to wading 
 later when I had got cool. 
 
 There was very little wind : just a light draught from 
 the east down the glen ; enough, and no more, to turn 
 part of the dark mirror to frosted silver. Our first 
 drift took us from the boat-house to the point where 
 the river leaves the loch through a rocky gorge. 
 Nothing happened for the first half- hour; I was on
 
 186 ON A HIGHLAND LOCH 
 
 the point of observing to the gillie that the breeze was 
 too light and the sun too bright, when there was a 
 sudden commotion of the surface near the flies. A 
 good fish, but he had missed ; I cast over him again ; 
 this time there was no mistake ; he fastened firmly and 
 spun away into the deep, dragging the top of the little 
 ten-footer into the water. Luckily, I had a boat ; had I 
 been fixed on shore, he must have run me out at once, 
 for the casting line was very fine, and ' holding on ' was 
 out of the question. The game goes on so long and so 
 .deep that I begin to suspect I am into something of the 
 nature of ' a fish.' ' Likely enough,' mutters some 
 Sassenach, who honours me by reading these lines : 
 ' what does a fellow who goes a-fishing expect to catch 
 but a fish ? ' Much, I reply ; sea-trout, for instance, 
 which in Northern parlance are not fish a term of dis- 
 tinction reserved for Scdmo salar. Presently all doubt 
 was settled by this fish springing high in the air at the 
 end of a dangerously long line, and revealing himself a 
 small salmon of six pounds, clean run from the sea. 
 As he made one of his final runs, a foolish little yellow 
 trout seized the bob fly, and gave me the satisfaction of 
 landing, for the first time in my life, a salmon and a 
 trout on the same cast. 
 
 After this the breeze freshened, and sea-trout began 
 to look up; but even a three-pounder, fighting for 
 liberty and life in the headlong, untiring way that only 
 a sea-trout can, seemed tame compared with the digni- 
 fied, masterful manner of the salmon. I longed for 
 another tilt with the nobler quarry. The chance came,
 
 JULY 187 
 
 but it brought gnashing of teeth with it. It was at 
 the opposite end of the loch, where the principal 
 feeder comes down the mountains and enters the loch 
 in a broad bay with many sand-bars. Here a salmon 
 rolled up, and like the other, missing the first time, 
 took firmly the second, and was fast. Alas ! ' we only 
 met to learn how hard it was to part/ Something 
 happened ; the rod sprang up ; half the cast with one 
 fly, instead of three, dangled loose in the breeze. 
 
 I have sounded all the depths of woe within reach of 
 an ordinary existence : believe me, there is no anguish 
 like that which follows the loss of a fish by fracture. 
 For every breach of the Decalogue the common sinner 
 may be shriven ; but for the clumsiness or carelessness 
 which allows a fish to break tackle in clear, deep water, 
 there is endless penance of self-reproach, and there is 
 never absolution.
 
 August 
 
 XLV 
 
 EVERY solitude in these islands has been searched, 
 rue every corner pried into, every yard of its 
 
 Locif ter f surface ransacked by busy specialists ; there 
 Arkaig remains very little of that mystery which it 
 is the pride of science to dispel. I confess that in the 
 past I have been superciliously incredulous in regard 
 to a shadowy monster known as the lake-horse that is 
 reported to exist in certain sheets of water in the High- 
 lands. The Celt is famous for his agile imagination. 
 It is interesting to listen to the yarns of stalkers and 
 fishermen; but stories of the Witch of Ben-y-gloe, of 
 water-kelpies and bogles, of fairies, dreams and warn- 
 ings, appeal but feebly to the coldly calculating Saxon. 
 Viewing the lone waters of a Highland loch, the southern 
 traveller is far more apt to speculate on the best pattern 
 of fly or minnow wherewith to capture the trout in its 
 depths, or to calculate the water power available for 
 the creation of electric instalments, than to ponder on 
 the legends of abnormal creatures peopling its depths. 
 Nevertheless, a friend of my own, far above suspicion 
 of exaggeration, whether intentional or unconscious,
 
 AUGUST 189 
 
 having borne testimony to the apparition of an animal 
 one evening lately in Loch Arkaig, the question pro- 
 pounded itself whether there may not exist, in that 
 profound abyss and others similar to it, living things 
 of which the nature cannot be precisely defined. 
 
 Loch Arkaig lies in one of the loveliest solitudes of 
 Lochaber, an expanse of water some thirteen miles in 
 length, winding from east to west among the mountains 
 composing Lochiel Forest, and connected with Loch 
 Lochy by the brief and tumultuous torrent of the 
 Arkaig river. For several miles the steep, south shore, 
 shadowed by the crests of Beinn Bhan and Gulvain 
 (3224 feet), is dark with the native pinewood, one of 
 the few shreds remaining of the forests which once 
 covered ancient Alban from sea to sea. On the north 
 shore, where Glasbheinn (the Green Hill) and Beinn 
 Chraoibh (the Tree Hill) slope fair to the sun, a broad 
 belt of oak and hazel, planted by no human hands, 
 reflects its changing beauties in the lake. There is 
 no landscape in all the Highlands known to me not 
 even the much-frequented Trossachs which combines 
 more perfectly loveliness and grandeur, or displays 
 more lavishly the charm of mountain, waters, and 
 woodland. 
 
 Well, in this loch is good store of trouts, both lively 
 fellows of one pound and two pounds to keep the fly- 
 tisher alert, and those overgrown specimens of their 
 race which were in old time dignified by specific rank 
 under the title of Salmo ferox. I have known one of 
 these taken on the minnow of the weight of twenty-
 
 190 THE MONSTER OF LOCH ARKAIG 
 
 three pounds, and to my own rod has fallen one of 
 the respectable figure of seventeen pounds and a half. 
 Pike also there be, reputed of important size, but of 
 these the fastidious angler takes little heed, mai guarda 
 e passa. Beyond and besides these, which might build 
 the reputation of any vulgar lake, the few dwellers on 
 these shores profess to have knowledge of a monster, 
 rarely seen, of dread proportions and mysterious powers 
 the each-locha or lake-horse. 
 
 The account given by my friend of what he saw is as 
 follows (and let me repeat, he is an old friend, and of that 
 nature, character, and unemotional temperament that no 
 degree of scepsis scientifica affects implicit belief in what 
 he says). It is as though I had seen the thing myself. 
 
 Well, on a fine evening lately he was returning down 
 the loch in a steam launch. Not a breath was stirring, 
 the water was perfectly calm, when, on the starboard 
 bow, about ten yards out of the boat's course, he saw 
 a creature come to the surface, struggling, apparently, 
 with something which was not visible to him. 
 
 ' What 's that ? ' he asked two persons who were be- 
 side him ; they saw the object distinctly, but could not 
 answer his inquiry. He then called to his host, the 
 tenant of the forest, who crossed from the port side just 
 as the boat came abreast of the animal. He did not 
 see it, for at that moment it disappeared beneath the 
 surface, but he saw the waves caused by its movement, 
 which crossed those caused by the launch. 
 
 That is the whole story ; but I submit that, having in 
 mind the unimpeachable character of the narrator, his
 
 AUGUST 191 
 
 long and intimate acquaintance with Scottish sport and 
 wild nature, it is worth putting upon record, if it were 
 only as a warning against the subjectivity of ocular 
 evidence. The each-locha is a current tradition on the 
 shores of Loch Arkaig ; there are several persons living 
 reputed to have seen it ; therefore, when a middle-aged 
 gentleman familiar with country sights and creatures, 
 suddenly sees, in the very haunts of the monster, a 
 large animal which he does not recognise, the inference 
 does not seem strained that he has beheld what the 
 natives call the each-locha. Mark you, he did not tell 
 me that he had seen the genuine monster; he only 
 described to me the impression made upon his eyes by 
 what he did see that of a large, unknown animal. I 
 have received from an Irish gentleman a minute dis- 
 cription of a living toad which he saw taken out of a 
 block of solid stone in a quarry. Nothing was further 
 from my suspicion than any attempt at gammon upon 
 his part ; he simply told what he believed he saw, but 
 I didn't believe for a moment that the toad had really 
 come out of the stone. But in the Loch Arkaig case, I 
 confess to having leant to the belief that there might 
 be some reality in the water-horse after all. However, 
 the pleasing illusion was created only to be dispelled. A 
 certain stalker was on deck at the time and saw the 
 animal. He is a Highlander, and lives on the shore 
 of the loch ; if any one might be found to take a 
 sensational view of the occurrence, here was the man. 
 Questioned about it several weeks afterwards, he replied 
 in perfect matter-of-fact :
 
 192 IN HIGHLAND WATERS 
 
 'It was an otter. I saw the beast long before the 
 gentleman did.' 
 
 ' But didn't you hear him describing it afterwards 
 and wondering what it could be ? ' 
 
 ' Certainly I did ; he thought it was the loch-eacha.' 
 ' Then why did you not tell him what it was ? ' 
 ' Oh, just because he never asked my opinion.' 
 The incident is disappointing, but it is useful; show- 
 ing how largely the psychical element must be taken 
 into account in weighing ocular evidence. 
 
 XL VI 
 
 Were I asked where summer could be seen at its 
 fairest. I should name the West Highland 
 
 In High- 
 land Archipelago. A Scotsman's prejudice, does 
 
 some one say ? Yes, but though a Scotsman, 
 pray remember I am no Highlander, but an unmiti- 
 gated Saisneach, which is the Highlander's name for 
 anybody who lives south of the Highland line, and 
 implies much the same degree of contempt as Tippoo 
 Sahib threw into his memorable aphorism ' A dog, a 
 pig, and an Englishman are brothers of the same 
 family.' 
 
 Of course, summer is not exactly a synonym for fine 
 weather in the West Highlands; there is sometimes 
 what the natives call a ' wecht o' weet ' to be got rid of, 
 a transaction which may take hours, days, or even 
 weeks, and most people postpone their visit till a 
 period of the season when there are accumulated
 
 AUGUST 193 
 
 arrears of wet to be liquidated. But a spell of such 
 weather as carried us through last July (1898), it would 
 be impossible to beat hard to match anywhere. I have 
 never been to the West Indies, but I have sampled 
 the climate of Athens, next to which I commend the 
 Italian Riviera east of Genoa (far more delicately limpid 
 than the western Riviera) ; the air of the Engadine 
 is exhilarating, that of Norway in June is divine, and 
 early summer on the Loire is not amiss ; but for down- 
 right loveliness for dewy sparkling mornings for 
 basking noons which parch not for long-drawn gloam- 
 ings lingering into the brief lucid night of the north 
 give me, in July, the western land pierced with long 
 winding inlets from the ocean, the mountain purple with 
 heather on its seaward face; on its landward aspect 
 falling sharply among green lawns and grey cliffs, 
 feathered with birches, into the secret glen. 
 
 These were there nothing to boot these, the mem- 
 ory and the love of them were enough to make 
 any one who has not tasted their delights spurn London 
 as men fled of old from the cities of the plain 
 enough to nerve any one to encounter that intolerable 
 jumble of tides off Ardnamurchan so he might reach 
 the Happy Isles where letters come but thrice a week 
 in fine weather, and in foul weather not at all. 
 
 But there is more than these. Believing, as I must 
 and do, that the only worthy, blameless, and altogether 
 honourable ambition of man is the capture of salmon 
 and trout with the artificial fly, and seeing that the 
 West Highlands abound in streams and lochs greatly 
 
 N
 
 194 IN HIGHLAND WATERS 
 
 frequented by these fish, how much to be blamed were 
 I if any minor considerations of mere business prevailed 
 to delay my access to the land of the Gael ? Never- 
 theless, a fisherman's notion of fine weather is not 
 exactly identical with that of a lover or a landscape 
 painter. The cloudless skies of July and the wide 
 mirrors of the lakes do not perfectly fulfil his ideal. 
 He sighs for the cloud low on the hill, the sough of the 
 south-west wind on the shore, the burns racing in 
 milky garlands through a hundred little glens. 
 
 The last sun of July sank in splendour behind the 
 steepled crests of Rum. Waking on August 1st, my 
 ears were full of sound, the silence of many weeks was 
 broken. The mountain opposite the window was 
 blotted from view; in the foreground the ash-trees 
 waved their arms and whimpered in the breeze. It 
 was raining not heavily, but steadily. My plan was 
 perfected in three minutes, two of which were spent in 
 such hesitation as the donkey feels between two bundles 
 of hay. There was a river within a quarter of a mile 
 of my bedside a river which had tinkled trivially 
 among its shingle for a month past, but one which four 
 hours of good rain would put in fishing trim ; a river 
 from which, even during the drought, I had extracted 
 sundry lovely sea-trout ; a river in which I had descried 
 many salmon sulkily sheltering from the heat. 
 Throughout the whole of July this stream had swollen 
 but once: 'A wee bit o' a spate/ as the head stalker 
 gloomily observed, 'just snappit up by the Sabbath.' 
 
 The sensible course would have been to breakfast
 
 AUGUST 195 
 
 leisurely, and then stroll down to this river. But when 
 an angler scents a spate, he ceases (at least, this one 
 does) to be a reasonable creature. The unknown the 
 unknowable lies before him. He packs up about 
 four times as much tackle as he can possibly require, 
 eats about half as much breakfast as he ought, twice 
 as fast as he ought, and goes forth to encounter fate. 
 Even so, he may fare prosperously; but woe! woe! 
 unto him if he has two rivers to choose between. 
 
 On this occasion, as I have indicated, one river 
 flowed close at hand. Past experience was there to 
 testify to its excellence; anybody but a born fool 
 would have been content with it. ' 0, Pigg ! hambition 
 is a fearful, a dreadful thing,' exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks 
 to his huntsman at the crisis of his fate, and it was 
 ambition that led me into misfortune on this first of 
 August. Parallel with this near river, of which I knew 
 every pool and cast, four or five miles across the hill 
 there runs another river, which, until this day, I had 
 never fished. Report ran that it was marvellously 
 prolific, and that its fish, which seldom saw a fly, were 
 of childlike simplicity hi the matter of rising when 
 they got the chance. The Evil One was at hand ; he 
 always is on such occasions at least, one likes to think 
 it is not innate stupidity which sends one wrong. 
 'Look here!' he whispered, 'don't you go and throw 
 away this chance. Don't be deluded into wasting a 
 day on the Amhuinn Aoidh. Be a man ! Never mind 
 the four mile walk out and in; off you go to the 
 Guseran, and you won't repent the extra fatigue.'
 
 196 IN HIGHLAND WATERS 
 
 Well, I went there. I trudged across that steep 
 four miles (four! I believe if the kinks were pulled 
 out of them they would be nearer fourteen) with that 
 burning impatience which makes one's boots feel like 
 4-inch guns. At last I stood beside the vaunted 
 Guseran. ' She ' was still small contemptibly, ridicul- 
 ously small not having quickened, as yet, to the 
 rainfall; but there are some deep, black pots among 
 the rocks, where salmon and sea-trout harbour in the 
 lowest water. My gillie recommended a ' Popham ' or 
 a 'Jock Scott' of the smallest size. See how that 
 schoolmaster has been at work ! Thirty years ago, 
 when I first knew Highland streams, had any profane 
 Southerner offered to exhibit such meretricious lures, 
 he would have been made to learn his place, and been 
 looked on as a likely candidate for a berth in the 
 county asylum if he had put up anything more gay 
 than a brown mallard or dun turkey wing. Now the 
 local authorities are just as dogmatic in the other 
 direction : nothing will attract ' our fish ' but the most 
 vivid confections of scarlet, blue, and gold. 
 
 With exemplary docility, I mounted a tiny Jock 
 Scott, with a Pennell hackle as a dropper. Here and 
 there a sea-trout flashed up as if to frighten the intru- 
 der; presently a fellow of about a pound, turning 
 sharply from the dropper, impaled himself on the 
 double hooks of the Jock Scott, dashed about the rocks 
 in fine style, and was landed. Then the river was seen 
 to be swelling ; it had been strange if it did not, seeing 
 that a close sheet of warm rain had been falling since
 
 AUGUST 197 
 
 early morning. Black streaks of rock on the hillsides 
 became hissing cascades. 
 
 'If this rain continue to fall,' said my gillie in the 
 elaborate language of the English-speaking Gael, ' she 
 will fish properly in about an hour, whatever.' 
 
 He underrated the sensitiveness of the Guseran. I 
 was perched on a rock full five-and-twenty feet above 
 the largest pool on the river, where the current, chafing 
 through a dark narrow channel, broadens suddenly and 
 spreads with gleams of amber and silver to fill an ample 
 basin, bordered with steep cliffs fringed with alder and 
 mountain ash. Upwards of thirty sea- trout must have 
 turned in succession at the flies as they twirled about 
 in the eddies. I managed to land half-a-dozen of them, 
 the largest being under two pounds; but I had my 
 eye all the time on the foot of the pool, where the 
 water draws into a steady flow, the very spot for a new- 
 run salmon. I ought to have gone there at once. 
 While wasting time with the small sea-trout at the 
 top, I became aware of a rising turmoil among the 
 rocks above. Presently the pool itself began to seethe ; 
 the spate was upon us. In ten minutes there was not 
 a yard of fishing water within view; all was a tawny 
 waste of angry, lashing waves. 
 
 Such has been my first experience of the Guseran a 
 paltry half-dozen of sea-trout ; while my two compan- 
 ions who stayed at home to fish the Amhuinn Aoidh 
 well, comparisons are odious, and there is no need to 
 emphasise my discomfiture by giving details of their 
 success. It is bad enough to remember that the take
 
 198 THE PURPLE WATERHEN 
 
 of each of them had to be reckoned in stones avoir- 
 dupois. 
 
 XL VII 
 
 The purple waterhen (Porphyrio cceruleus) was 
 The Purple admitted by the late Lord Lilford to his 
 waterhen gallery of British bird portraits on evidence 
 which satisfied him that the species had bred in a state 
 of liberty in Norfolk. Ornithologists in general, how- 
 ever, decline to regard this gallinule as more than an 
 escape from captivity ; but although it is a native of the 
 Mediterranean region and the Persian Gulf, the fine 
 bird seems to take kindly to our cooler climate, and 
 probably requires little encouragement to become 
 thoroughly acclimatised. It is a really desirable addi- 
 tion to our avifauna ; its plumage, chiefly of rich violet 
 with blue-and-green reflections, contrasts vividly with 
 the carmine bill and legs ; and its habits, by no means 
 retiring, render it a conspicuous ornament on suitable 
 sheets of water. But it is a voracious feeder ; no small 
 pond or brook would supply enough suitable food, and 
 its manner of feeding is peculiar. One morning lately 
 I watched a pair of them through the glass on our lake 
 sanctuary, where they have made themselves quite at 
 home since early spring. They have made their haunt 
 in an extensive bed of Scirpus lacustris, that dark 
 green, smooth rush, which in Scotland is erroneously 
 termed bulrush, and a pretty mess they have made of 
 it. They have beaten and broken down rushes to 
 enable them to wade on a floating mass ; standing on
 
 AUGUST 199 
 
 this as a platform, Porphyrio thrusts his head below 
 water, seizes one of the rushes in his powerful beak, 
 and tugs at it till it comes up from the root. Now 
 this is a very remarkable performance. To test the 
 strength required, I attached a cord to one of these 
 rushes, and hooked a steelyard to the cord. At a 
 pull of ten pounds the rush broke at the cord, but the 
 root part remained firm. This happened repeatedly; 
 it seems difficult to believe that a bird not so large 
 as a guinea-fowl standing on an insecure float- 
 ing platform of rushes, can pull a weight of ten 
 pounds, yet Porphyrio and his mate pulled up 
 fifty of these rushes in my presence with a peculiar 
 jerking motion. Well, having dragged it up, the 
 bird passes it rapidly along with his beak till he 
 arrive at the white succulent end ; then seizing the rush, 
 parrot-like, in one of his enormous red feet, he holds 
 it up and nips away at the pith, eating very fast, and 
 with as much relish, apparently, as unfeathered bipeds 
 devour asparagus. The devastation of the rushes is 
 appalling, and what these birds will turn to when they 
 have exhausted the supply remains to be seen. Their 
 flight is powerful, and the danger is that they may 
 leave us and fall before the gun of some booby who 
 shoots every bird that he does not recognise. Scirpus 
 lacustris is not a common rush in the north, and 
 possibly Porphyrio may have to put up with some 
 inferior delicacy till the beds of that plant have 
 recovered. Meanwhile these gallinules, with a bed of 
 Monsieur Marliac's rose-coloured water-lilies floating
 
 200 WATER GARDENING 
 
 in the bay behind them, form quite a sub -tropical 
 group, and make the native waterhen, itself a smart 
 little bird, look quite dingy and insignificant by com- 
 parison. 1 
 
 XLVIII 
 
 On the subject of these Marliac hybrid water-lilies 
 water we nave na( i long enough experience of them 
 Gardening now to p ronounce them an important supple- 
 ment to our hardy flora. Personally, I am of Perdita's 
 mind, and prefer natural species to showy hybrids 
 'nature's bastards' and none of these glowing or 
 faintly tinted novelties exceed in beauty the common 
 white water-lily, although some of them do so in size. 
 But human fancy ' taste,' as we fondly call it in matters 
 aesthetic is capricious above all things. If the normal 
 colour of a flower is pink, like heather, then we search 
 diligently till we find an abnormal specimen with white 
 flowers, and it does not seem to occur to us how dull 
 the Highland hills would be if, at this season, instead of 
 glowing with purple and rose, they were sheeted with 
 white heather. So, although Nature has bestowed upon 
 us our native water-lily, matchless in purity of hue and 
 refinement of sculpture, we rest not till we have stained 
 
 1 The subsequent fate of this pair of Porphyrio was grievous. 
 After a happy summer-tide spent in the sanctuary, they seemed to 
 scent the harvest fields beyond the woods. They flew out to the 
 stubbles, and there they were malignantly catapulted to death by 
 sohool-boys. I am thinking of consulting my solicitors whether there 
 is anything in the Statute Book to prevent me turning a selection of 
 she-bears into the woods for the repression of these school-boys. It is 
 not on record that any proceedings were taken against Elisha.
 
 AUGUST 201 
 
 its petals with an admixture of foreign blood. They 
 are undoubtedly attractive, these new hybrids, the 
 blossoms varying from pale rose to crimson, sulphur 
 colour to flaming orange. Where there is plenty of 
 room it is certainly worth while giving the best varieties 
 a bay to spread in, and nobody has realised their beauty 
 till he has seen them in an ample, natural sheet of 
 water. I received several kinds in the autumn of 1893 
 from M. Marliac's establishment at Temple-sur-Lot ; 
 they were kept in large pots sunk hi tubs in a cool 
 house till the spring, when the tubs were put in the 
 open air, and in the autumn of 1894 they were sunk, 
 pots and all, in about three feet of water in the lake. 
 The memorable frost of that winter the most severe 
 we are likely ever to experience in this country 
 put them to the test of hardiness. Some succumbed 
 partly, I fancy, because they were sunk in too deep 
 water but the rest are flourishing and spreading fast. 
 Some of these new varieties prolong the flowering 
 season long after the common white water-lily is past. 
 
 A great deal may be done much has been done in 
 many places to supplement our native aquatic and 
 waterside herbage. No lover of the country but looks 
 forward to the month of the iris our native yellow 
 flag. I saw lately its American counterpart, Iris vir- 
 ginica, used with charming effect as a contrast to it in 
 Mr. Chamberlain's garden at Highbury. This also is a 
 water-loving species, and spreads as freely as our own ; 
 but its flowers, instead of golden, are violet and purple. 
 Would that somebody with leisure and means were
 
 202 WATER GARDENING 
 
 inspired to prepare a monograph of the iris, such as 
 Major Elwes has done for the lilies, and Mr. Hanbury 
 is doing for the hawkweeds. It would form a gorgeous 
 volume, for the blossoms of the different species are all 
 beautiful, delicately coloured, and gracefully formed. 
 It is, moreover, a peculiarly interesting section, on 
 account of its wide distribution in both Old and New 
 Worlds, its bewildering variety, and the peculiar adapta- 
 tion of the various species to extremes of temperature 
 and of wet and dry. In Britain we possess only two 
 species the yellow marsh iris above-mentioned, and the 
 wood iris or gladdon, called also the roast-beef plant, 
 because the leaves when bruised are supposed to 
 smell like cold beef. This peculiarity hardly justified 
 Linnaeus in naming the plant Iris fostidissima, an 
 evil title for a herb that only smells when crushed, 
 and then not offensively. A far more striking feature 
 of the gladdon is the seed-vessel, which, splitting open 
 in autumn, displays beaded rows of bright orange 
 seeds as large as a pea. Londoners have reason to 
 value the iris : the species germanica and tuberosa are 
 among the few flowering plants that take care of them- 
 selves in the glare and dust of town gardens. Year 
 after year masses of purple blossom are displayed in 
 neglected corners, or make the squares gay with a fleet- 
 ing glory. 
 
 Bamboos also supply infinite grace and luxuriance 
 for the decoration of water margins, not, like the iris, 
 to be planted actually in the water or marsh, but on a 
 well-drained bank whence the roots may spread to the
 
 AUGUST 203 
 
 moisture near at hand. It is curious how long it was 
 before we discovered the hardiness of many bamboos in 
 our climate. Mr. Freeinan-Mitford's book, published 
 only two years ago, came as an apocalypse to most 
 gardeners, containing directions for the cultivation of 
 upwards of one hundred species, nearly all as hardy as 
 their relative, the common couchgrass. Of one condi- 
 tion all the bamboos are alike impatient they cannot 
 endure wind. Woodlovers by nature, they must have 
 the shelter of trees around, yet a clear space overhead. 
 When these are provided they take care of themselves ; 
 but there is one precaution insisted on by Mr. Mitford 
 in receiving young plants from the nursery, don't plant 
 them out in the open at once. The roots are very 
 sensitive and brittle ; they are sure to have been bruised 
 and broken in removal. Plant your purchase in large 
 pots of good loam, and keep them for six months in a 
 cool greenhouse. At the end of that time the pots 
 will be found full of new roots ; the plants should be 
 planted out in May in the positions they are to occupy 
 permanently, and will grow ahead without a check ; 
 whereas, if they had been planted out on arriving from 
 the nursery, they would certainly have hung fire for a 
 year or so, and perhaps never have recovered at all. 
 The same consideration extended to many other exotics, 
 notably the hybrid water-lilies, would save an immense 
 amount of loss and disappointment. Thousands of 
 costly plants are cruelly sacrificed every year for want 
 of judicious treatment before they are committed to the 
 open ground.
 
 SEA-TROUT 
 
 XLIX 
 
 The spell of halcyon weather which lay over the 
 western coast of Scotland for three weeks at 
 
 Sea-trout 
 
 the end of July and beginning of August 
 broke with violent salvoes of electric artillery and 
 prodigious deluge. The Scottish harvest not being so 
 imminent as to suffer materially from wind and wet, 
 we anglers rejoiced with clear conscience over a 
 change which revived hope long deferred, and we 
 watched the rising waters with feverish impatience for 
 one of the liveliest phases of the fisher's craft. 
 
 'Soolky August' is the worst month in the salmon- 
 angler's calendar. The Lammas floods often bring up 
 great numbers of fish, but in most rivers they are very 
 languid about rising to the fly until the cooler breath 
 of September sets them in a brisker mood. But 
 August is only inferior to a wet July as the sea-trout 
 fishers' carnival. The chief run of heavy sea-trout 
 generally takes place in June or July ; this is succeeded 
 in August by a multitude of smaller fish, averaging, 
 say, half a pound in weight corresponding to the 
 grilse of salmon, and known in various districts as 
 herlings, finnocks, whitlings, or sprods. So that in 
 August you have the chance of mature fish up to 
 five pounds or more, with the certainty of plenty of 
 herlings delicious fellows on the table to keep you 
 on the qui vive. 
 
 But to enjoy this sport in perfection a succession of 
 good spates is necessary. Night-fishing with fly,
 
 AUGUST 205 
 
 indeed, may be practised with profit even when the 
 water is dead low 'a choice way,' as Izaak Walton 
 observed of night-fishing in general, ' but . . . void of 
 the pleasures that such days as these, that we two now 
 enjoy, afford the angler.' Izaak was right. The cream 
 of fly-fishing the psychological moment is the rise, 
 and that is invisible in the dark. Nevertheless, the 
 night hath charms of its own; especially a northern 
 summer night, when the twilight, long lingering, almost 
 joins hands with the dawn. Its beauty is less varied, 
 but hardly less delicious than the day. On such a 
 night there is nothing unfair or unsportsmanlike to take 
 toll of the silvery shoals which work up with the tide 
 into the lower pools, though the sport has a degree of 
 sameness which makes it far inferior to daylight 
 angling. On such a night lately, before the floods came, 
 I bicycled over to the mouth of the Luce, a west coast 
 stream much frequented by sea-trout. Arriving at 
 seven, I was at least two hours too soon, for nothing 
 can be done in the low water till the shadows have 
 deepened on the scene. The river was but a dribble, 
 meandering between great tracts of shingle, with here 
 and there a still expanse denoting a salmon pool. I 
 went down to the lowest pool, which is entered by the 
 sea at high tide. What a tantalising scene ! The water 
 was alive with springing fish big fellows of three pounds 
 and four pounds and lots of herling, while from time 
 to time a salmon threw himself out and fell back 
 with resounding splash. More than once I saw five 
 fish in the air at the same moment. It seemed impos-
 
 206 SEA-TROUT 
 
 sible that out of this multitude there were not a few 
 that could be induced to take a fly, if it were only out 
 of sheer malice. But no ! for two hours I plied them 
 with all the resources of civilisation ; result a single 
 deluded herling of half a pound. I got tired of it ; 
 wound up and returned to the watcher's cottage about 
 a mile up the river, where I had left my bicycle. He 
 was not surprised at my ill-success, knowing that 
 hardly a fish will take before dark in dead low water. 
 It was quite dark by this time, and he said I could 
 catch as many as I liked if I tried the pool in front 
 of his house. 
 
 There was not much art required. I cast my flies 
 over the inky waters a plunge, a short scream from 
 the reel, and a wild dashing about the pool ; my tackle 
 was stout, and I held on firmly, and presently a two- 
 pounder was scooped out, with the starlight glittering 
 on his silvery coat. No need to change my position ; 
 sea-trout creep up in the lowest water into the pools. 
 I could hear them rippling over the shallows. The 
 sport goes on all the hours of darkness, ceasing about 
 two in the morning. But it soon palls, and one longs 
 for a tumbling spate to have the perfection of sea-trout 
 angling. 
 
 A fortnight later I returned to the same place. 
 What an altered scene ! There had been a five-foot 
 flood the day before, and the narrow, glassy puddle 
 from which I had filled my basket under cloud of 
 night was a broad, swift reach of foam-flecked, tossing 
 water. I had two rods with me an eighteen-foot green-
 
 AUGUST 207 
 
 heart and a ten-foot split-cane. Neither was suitable, 
 for a light fifteen-footer is the proper tool for Salmo 
 trutta. But the water was big, and just as I was 
 hesitating which to use, up jumped a clean-run 
 salmon and decided me in favour of the big rod. The 
 sun was intensely bright, so I selected two of the 
 smaller grilse flies in my case a so-called 'sun-fly,' with 
 black silk body, and wing entirely of golden pheasant 
 crest feathers, with a gay blue hackle at the throat, 
 and for a tail fly a brilliant gold-bodied affair with a 
 crimson hackle. 
 
 The first try over the pool was disappointing. No 
 salmon or grilse looked up ; several sea-trout flashed at 
 the flies and turned away ; only one of a pound came 
 to bank. So, being at the tail 'of the pool, I resorted to 
 a device which has often proved of avail when fish 
 came short I backed it up. It is such a useful 
 wrinkle that, at the risk of imparting stale news, I 
 venture to describe the process, because, strange to 
 say, few anglers seem to resort to it. Standing at the 
 foot of the stream or pool, you must draw out a long 
 line, fling it to the far side, and step backwards very 
 slowly up the bank, making a fresh cast as soon as the 
 flies come to the near side. One advantage is that the 
 line is thus kept without a belly in it, which is of much 
 advantage in striking a fish. Then there seems to be 
 some attraction to fish in moving objects which come 
 over them from behind. At all events, I have often 
 killed salmon in this way, which would not look at 
 a fly coming down to meet them.
 
 208 SEA-TROUT 
 
 Well, these tactics succeeded. Three or four good 
 sea-trout were in the bag by the time I stood again at 
 the top of the cast brilliant fellows, up to two pounds 
 and a half, just out of the tide. But the salmon were 
 dour ; they kept rolling about, never giving an offer at 
 the daintiest lures. ' Soolky August/ think I to myself, 
 and exchange the heavy rod for the light one, for it 
 must be confessed that sea-trout show a poor fight on 
 a powerful salmon-rod. With a light ten-footer they 
 fight splendidly, buzzing out the line and jumping 
 repeatedly. But, after taking half-a-dozen more of 
 them with the delicate gear, the temptation of giving 
 the salmon a fair chance overpowered me, and for 
 two or three hours I thrashed away in momentary 
 expectation of the majestic summons of a 'fush.' It 
 never came. At three o'clock I caused the gillie to 
 turn out the contents of the bag. Exactly a score of 
 sea-trout, weighing twenty-five pounds, was the tally. 
 
 Just then a farmer friend, who had been fishing 
 above me, came down the water, and reported having 
 raised a salmon twice, without accounting for it further. 
 He told me my flies were too big for sea-trout, seeing 
 that the river (which is one of those sensitive streams, 
 all over the place to-day and dwindling into a thread 
 to-morrow) had fallen nearly a foot since the morning. 
 I told him to try his smaller flies over a lovely stream 
 I had just been fishing. At the very first cast up 
 came a grilse, fastened bravely, and in five minutes 
 was hanging on the scale with the index at five pounds. 
 ' Shall I try for his neighbour ? ' (good Scots for
 
 AUGUST 209 
 
 ' comrade ') he asked. ' Certainly,' quoth I ; ' and there 
 he is ! ' I added, as a stout pull and vigorous splashing 
 ensued in the sharp stream. However, it was not the 
 true ' neighbour,' but a good sea- trout of two pounds. 
 
 One word to brother-anglers in conclusion. Don't 
 let laziness or greed or anxiety to display a showy 
 bag to your admiring home-circle prevent you from 
 distributing your fish with a liberal hand. People 
 who dwell on the banks of a river without the right 
 of fishing in it appreciate a little attention of this sort, 
 and you will be no sufferer by keeping them in good 
 humour. Even if you are a stranger in the land, 
 remember that in most of the homesteads that you 
 pass the daily fare is humble and monotonous. A 
 fresh-run sea- trout is no contemptible contribution to 
 the poor man's table.
 
 OF all the days of this memorable summer and autumn 
 The great (1899) the last to be recorded to the credit 
 Lake Trout o f fa e eighteen hundreds none has been 
 more delicious than one I have just spent upon one 
 of the loveliest and least known of Highland lochs. 
 This loch must be nameless, because, greatly solicitous 
 though every one ought to be for the wellbeing of his 
 fellows, a man hesitates to point the way to the few 
 solitudes that are left in our land, lest some enter- 
 prising engineer should conspire with the sparse 
 inhabitants who seem to the lover of nature so 
 seldom to know when they are well off and how to 
 leave that well alone and a light railway be the 
 result. Be it enough, therefore, to indicate that this 
 little inland sea runs, sinuous and profound, for some 
 thirteen miles through the heart of a Highland deer- 
 forest one that fulfils more exactly the conventional 
 idea of forest than the bleak wastes where the red deer 
 must be usually sought, inasmuch as a goodly breadth 
 of the primeval Caledonian woodland still clothes the 
 mountain flanks on either shore. The north side, lying
 
 SEPTEMBER 211 
 
 fair to the sun, carries a gracious mantle of oaks, to the 
 height of between two and three hundred feet up the 
 slopes ; the south side, darker by reason of the shadow- 
 ing mountain mass and steeper than the other, bears 
 a great pinewood whereof the glades are lightsome 
 with birch, rowan, and holly the crags fired with the 
 soft glow of blooming heather. 
 
 The long drought had given way ; much and welcome 
 rain had fallen ; a hundred streams were hurrying down 
 the heights on either hand in milky cascades, but the 
 storm had cleared off; the kindly sun shared the 
 heavens with the retreating clouds; and as I steered 
 the little screw launch towards a point some three 
 miles up the loch, where my companion was to be 
 landed for stalking, methought that never had human 
 eyes feasted on a more perfect scene of wood and water, 
 towering hill, and falling stream. My own quest this 
 day was not the deer, but a creature which many hours 
 of vain pursuit have tempted faint-hearted anglers to 
 pronounce mythical. All the scaly race notably 
 salmon and ordinary trout are capricious enough, 
 heaven knows, and subject to prolonged fits of inertia ; 
 but for sheerly unaccountable and perverse disregard 
 of the choicest lures, commend me to the great lake 
 trout. Once he was regarded as a species per se, 
 and dignified by the title of Salmo ferox; better 
 acquaintance with him, however, has convinced most 
 anglers and naturalists that he is no more than a brook 
 trout favoured by circumstance, sea-room, and an un- 
 scrupulous appetite till he attains abnormal proportions.
 
 212 THE GREAT LAKE TROUT 
 
 There is no better bait for these monsters than one 
 of their own younger brethren ; but on this occasion I 
 had provided some beautiful dace and gudgeon, such 
 as you may procure, perfectly preserved in formalin, 
 from any good tackle-maker. One of each of these 
 tempting morsels, duly fixed on Archer flights, was 
 soon spinning forty yards astern of the launch, and 
 decks were cleared for action. They ought to be so 
 cleared, because when Master Ferox makes up his mind 
 he leaves no doubt in yours as to his intentions. He 
 means to have your fishlet, and when he finds it won't 
 come off the hooks, 'By gum!' says he, 'but I'll just 
 read this beggar a lesson. I'll run out a hundred 
 yards of his line and then 1 11 smash him see if I 
 don't ! ' And down he dives into the amazing pro- 
 fundity of a Highland loch. Woe, woe unto him who 
 hath a flaw in his tackle or an untimely kink in his 
 line ! He shall carry with him. to the end of his days 
 a weight of misery which only an angler knows ; for is 
 there any anguish so poignant and so enduring as the 
 loss of a big fish ? 
 
 And here the narrative of this day's fishing might 
 be brought to a close. In spite of untiring diligence 
 sustained for nine mortal hours in spite of favouring 
 wind and changeful sky conditions which could not 
 have been improved to order not a single ferox 
 thumped out his life on the bottom of our craft. It 
 required the memory of bygone triumphs to assure me 
 that the aristocracy of this loch were neither few nor 
 small. Nine small trout, averaging not more than a
 
 SEPTEMBER 213 
 
 pound apiece, were dragged in remorselessly on the 
 strong tackle, but once only did the stone placed on a 
 bight of the line fly off sharply and the whirring reel 
 betoken something important at the other end. This 
 happened when least expected. We were crossing the 
 loch to try a favourite bay on the south side ; and when 
 half-way across, where the great depth rendered such 
 an incident most unlikely, a fish struck, engines were 
 reversed, and the play began. The play was not amiss ; 
 it was lively, but it was not the dogged violence of 
 ferox. It was but a grilse of six pounds newly run, 
 which paid the penalty of an inquisitive disposition; 
 good enough for the pot; far better indeed than the 
 most corpulent ferox, but unsatisfying to nerves strung 
 for a more heroic encounter. 
 
 Nevertheless, in spite of failure, that day will live in 
 memory long after some of more solid results have 
 faded. It was something to have been alternately 
 steeped in sunshine and slashed with innocent showers ; 
 something to have persevered in cruising at the rate 
 of three or four miles an hour without having to con- 
 sider the aching arms and backs of a labouring crew ; 
 something, when the shades began to fall and my 
 host's dinner- table was twelve miles distant, to reel up 
 the lines, turn on full steam, and race home at ten 
 miles an hour through the fragrant twilight. Then I 
 had landed occasionally to explore tempting bits of 
 woodland. The ospreys, immemorially domiciled on 
 an island at one end of the loch, have lately established 
 a new colony near the other end. They have made a
 
 214 IN CORROUR FOREST 
 
 strange choice of an eyrie. Instead of building on one 
 the great and ancient pines in the heart of the wood 
 seven miles long, these fish falcons have selected a 
 couple of puny, wind- warped young trees on the most 
 exposed headland projecting into the loch. Here are 
 two eyries, constructed on stems hardly fit to bear 
 their weight. The birds have left the strath for the 
 season, as is their custom in winter ; but if they escape 
 the myriad boobies who, gun in hand, infest- our land, 
 they will return without fail to the haunts where they 
 have nested since a time before history began to be 
 written. 
 
 LI 
 
 A forest yes, but not such a scene as the term con- 
 in corrour jures in the mind of a southerner. From 
 where I lie in the September sunshine, high 
 on the shoulder of Beinn Bhreach, some 3000 feet 
 above sea-level, my eyes travel over a vast range of 
 crests, ridges, peaks the brown moor of Rannoch 
 seamed with silver streams and set with gleaming 
 lochs a range that extends from the cone of Schie- 
 hallion on the south to the dome of Ben Nevis on the 
 north. Much of this district by far the greater part 
 of it indeed is ' forest ' in a Highland sense ; yet, from 
 this point, at least, not a single tree may be discerned, 
 be it not a few stunted birch and rowan, clinging to the 
 scarped hill on the far shore of Loch Ossian. ' Forest,' 
 in short, means ground reserved for the noblest of
 
 SEPTEMBER 215 
 
 British wild animals the red deer. No doubt most 
 of the ground in view was once forest in the sense of 
 woodland. The whole of the soil far up the hillsides 
 is full of sylvan wreckage roots, stems, and boughs, 
 chiefly of Scots pine (for we are too high here for oak), 
 lying continuously for many, many miles as they fell ; 
 not rotting, because of the antiseptic properties of peat, 
 still full of resin, and affording excellent fuel. Why 
 did they die ? or, rather, why did these trees leave no 
 posterity ? It is one of the most obscure problems of 
 natural history, this disappearance of the Highland 
 forest, and it would take too long even to recapitulate 
 the theories started to account for it. The one, the 
 only, thing that is clear is the result namely, that of 
 the dark evergreen mantle that once wrapped the great 
 Moor of Rannoch and surrounding mountains not a rag 
 remains, except in the wood of Dall ; everywhere else 
 the Scots pine is as completely extinct as the bears, 
 wolves, and Caledonian white cattle which once har- 
 boured in the pristine woods. 
 
 It has cost me some pains to attain my present 
 exalted point of view literally, pains physical suffer- 
 ing such as those who must confess, not to old age 
 perish the ugly thought ? but, let us say, to approach- 
 ing maturity such as those, in short, who have turned 
 their half-hundred must encounter when they leave the 
 streets and high roads (ay, and the luncheons and 
 dinners) of civilisation and take to the wilderness. 
 The couple of thousand feet or so which we have 
 ascended since, some six hours ago, I left my pony
 
 216 IN COEROUR FOREST 
 
 at the foot of the hill by no means represents the 
 aggregate of ' foot pounds ' which I have had to lift in 
 the interval. First of all, the wind being south or 
 thereby, we crossed a mile or so of about the roughest 
 'peat hags' I ever encountered, and then, profusely 
 perspiring already, began ascending the eastern limb of 
 the mountain, then worked along the comb of the ridge 
 which runs between a corrie on the left hand and the 
 northern face of the hill, falling steeply away on the 
 right. The corrie was tenantless, but half-way down 
 the eastern face, five hundred feet or so below us, we 
 detected two good stags, and made a wide detour to 
 approach them. But the wind played the traitor. 
 Blowing steadily on the height, on the lee side of the 
 hill, it was gusty and uncertain ; a wandering flaw 
 puffed up behind, and carried our scent the hateful 
 scent of man to the grazing stags, still four hundred 
 yards distant; their heads were up in a minute, and 
 they went off at score. 
 
 Nowhere as in the forest does a man feel how in- 
 appropriate is the scientific definition of his species as 
 Homo sapiens Man the Wise. The stalker, if you 
 like, is omniscient Homo omnisciens in his own 
 domain, but for the mere sportsman who is committed 
 to his care the only proper title is Homo humilissimus. 
 He is led about on the steep ground, often without the 
 slightest understanding of the plan of campaign, told 
 when to stoop to crawl to run; the only responsi- 
 bility upon him comes at the crucial moment of firing. 
 A terrible moment of suffering it often is. A long
 
 SEPTEMBER 217 
 
 crawl down hill with head much lower than his heels, 
 through bog and burn, till there is not a dry stitch on 
 him, may bring him to the desired range ; the rifle is 
 thrust into his hands ; he receives a hoarsely-whispered 
 injunction to ' take him ' (i.e. the stag) ' NOW ! ' With 
 throbbing temples and swimming eyes he struggles 
 into the nearest approach to a firing position which he 
 can assume on ground sloping at an angle of forty 
 degrees ; and if he manages to hit the dusky form, 
 one hundred or one hundred and fifty yards away, 
 nobody is so much surprised as himself. 
 
 But other chances occur in which all the odds are in 
 favour of the marksman, and such was the case on this 
 day. About one o'clock we found a party of fifteen 
 stags and a lot of hinds far below us on the western 
 side of the hill, and spent about an hour stalking them. 
 There was only one ' shootable ' beast among them, but 
 he was a very grand stag, and deep was my chagrin that 
 long before we got near them something moved the 
 herd, and they went off at a trot round the flank of 
 the hill. Up the steep again we climbed ; but we had 
 not been travelling another hour before we saw the 
 same deer, having taken up their position on the crest 
 of a kind of pass between two hills. It was about as 
 bad a place to approach unseen as could be. The 
 ground fell sharply away on the only side which the 
 wind would permit to be taken, very smooth, with no 
 friendly gully or shelter. 
 
 What was to be done ? 
 
 Well, my stalker said we must remain as we were till
 
 218 IN CORROUR FOREST 
 
 the deer fed over the ridge ; but, instead of feeding, they 
 all lay down, so that plan failed. Scanning the ground 
 anxiously, Homo omnisciens detected a slight wrinkle 
 on the far side of the smooth slope below the deer. If we 
 could only reach that, it led up to a small knoll within 
 range. His mind was soon made up. The wrinkle 
 could only be reached by descending the hill almost 
 to its base, say fifteen hundred feet from where we lay, 
 passing under a cliff to the other side of the smooth 
 ground, and climbing to the same elevation on the far 
 side. It seems easy enough on paper, but it involved 
 a journey not less in distance than from St. Paul's 
 Cathedral, by the Embankment, to Westminster, thence 
 to the Marble Arch, and back by Holborn to St. Martin's- 
 le-Grand plus a descent and ascent of fifteen hundred 
 feet. 
 
 It took us the best part of two hours, and the last 
 quarter of a mile was the worst, for it was on all fours 
 an attitude which adult human beings now find it as 
 difficult to maintain for long as their quadrumanous 
 ancestors once found it was to abandon. Oh ! those 
 redundant luncheons those superfluous entrees that 
 unnecessary nutrition assimilated in the sleepy south 
 how one repents of them in moments like these ! How- 
 ever, all goes well, and here I am, inditing these lines 
 within one hundred and forty yards of the big stag, 
 waiting till it shall please his majesty to rise and give 
 me a chance at his broadside. Through a pair of Zeiss 
 reflectors I can read his very expression, the lazy con- 
 tent with which he lolls his well-antlered crest upon his
 
 SEPTEMBER 219 
 
 side, half asleep, yet half inclined to rise and begin his 
 evening meal, as some of the smaller beasts have done. 
 
 It is very pleasant lying here before the westering 
 sun. Of all moods of womanhood, I am assured (I 
 speak not from personal experience) that none is 
 so captivating as that of a shrew in good humour. 
 Highland weather is often shrewish enough, Heaven 
 knows shrilly scolding in horrid blasts, and weeping 
 profusely ; but there is none like it when it is fine. 
 
 What a bloodthirsty, treacherous brute I am, lying in 
 wait for that noble beast out there ! Why can't I leave 
 him to enjoy this peaceful evening ? After all, if there 
 were no such sport as stalking, red deer would long since 
 have vanished from these hills ; their lot is easier than 
 that of most beasts of the chase; carefully preserved 
 during ten months in the year, they are only persecuted 
 during two. 
 
 At this point the big beast began to stir. Ah, drat 
 those hinds moving before him ! 
 
 Now he is clear he rises and stretches himself 
 broadside on. One hundred and thirty yards, I think, 
 rather up hill yet must I take a fine sight, for the 
 Express throws high crack ! 
 
 Forty animals start together with one bound, and 
 set off along the ridge, my stag among them. I have 
 missed ! No, he staggers rears, striking the air with 
 his forelegs falls backwards, and in ten seconds is 
 stone dead. 
 
 ' You have got the best beast on the hill to-day, 
 whatever,' observes Homo omnisciens, as he strips 
 himself for the ' gralloch.'
 
 220 ANOTHER DAY ON THE HILL 
 
 LII 
 
 The first glance across my window-sill this morning 
 Another pay (September 29) revealed a changed world, 
 on the Hiii g^ w j n( j ow . s iii i s the respectable height of 
 1250 feet above the sea, but all around tower hills 2000 
 feet higher. Last night, when the sun set upon them, 
 their summer verdure was altered no whit, the heather 
 still carried a roseate flush; but this morning every- 
 thing above the level of 2500 feet is white with thick 
 snow. Presents itself, therefore, the ever-recurring 
 problem, what clothes to wear in stalking whether is 
 it most endurable to suffer from too thick garments 
 or to shiver in too thin ? The problem, indeed, has 
 been shorn of much of its complexity by that 
 admirable invention, the 'aqua-scutum.' Light it 
 adds nothing perceptible to one's load; long, wind 
 and water proof it can be slipped over all or shaken 
 off in a moment; soft it has none of the hateful 
 clamminess of the macintosh ; in short, every hillman 
 has pronounced the ' aqua-scutum ' indispensable ; and 
 considering how much discomfort it has warded off, I 
 should be wanting in common decency if my tribute to 
 its merits were short of heart-whole. I left mine in 
 a hansom one day last summer, and had to repair to 
 the police Bastille upon the Victoria Embankment to 
 recover it. On being asked, as usual, to declare the 
 value of the article, ' Two pounds,' quoth I, not without 
 compunction, well knowing that whatever were its 
 price, its value was beyond rubies. The constable
 
 SEPTEMBER 221 
 
 shook it out of its folds wrinkled, shabby, sub-fuse 
 it certainly looked a mean enough article. ' Full value, 
 sir ! ' was his laconic comment as he handed it across 
 the counter in exchange for the ransom of five shillings, 
 which I paid with a light heart. 
 
 This morning, then, despite the snow, I trusted to the 
 aqua-scutum, and donned clothes of medium weight. 
 It was a right decision, as it turned out, for the clouds 
 dispersed, and the September sun shone out in the fore- 
 noon with quite enough force to make me sob as we 
 climbed along the steep face of Faich-chaol. It was 
 blowing a whole gale on the top, but nothing except 
 flaws and puffs reached us under the broad shoulder 
 of Carndearg. Rendered into English, Faich-chaol 
 signifies the narrow strath not so narrow, however, but 
 that the whole of Bloomsbury and Bayswater, with 
 Hyde Park and Knightsbridge thrown in as a depen- 
 dance, might be stowed upon its ample slopes. As it is, 
 once you have penetrated a mile into its recess and 
 shut out from view the stalkers' house at the entrance 
 with its patch of precarious corn and its peat-stack 
 beside the loch not a sign of human presence or 
 handiwork may be seen. Nothing but mountains, with 
 brown sides and hoary crests, and far below for we 
 have risen a thousand feet the loops and links of the 
 torrent, winding among countless little meadows of 
 vivid green. 
 
 Oh, those blessed moments of respite, when your 
 stalker stops to spy ! Oh, the gratitude with which you 
 fling yourself beside him on the heather, trying your
 
 222 ANOTHER DAY ON THE HILL 
 
 utmost yet, as you feel, without the faintest success 
 to look as if your temples were not throbbing as though 
 they would burst, and as though your chest were not 
 compressed with a band of adamant ! 
 
 This time he spies to some purpose. Be still, 
 bumping heart ! be steady, quivering hands ! cease to 
 flow, O eyes, not with tears, but with the sweat of my 
 brow! and let me get the glass on these objects like 
 insects on the mountain flank, a mile and a half in 
 front of us. 
 
 Five eight fifteen deer, some grazing, some lying, 
 below a grey crag in the full sunshine. There are two 
 good stags there, so the stalker tells me, and in such 
 cases I never dream of forming my own opinion. Many 
 seasons have been added to the past more than it 
 would serve any agreeable purpose to reckon since 
 first I drew bead upon a warrantable hart, yet am I no 
 nearer now to the power of discriminating between ' a 
 good body ' and a poor one. The quality of the head, 
 of course, is obvious to any duffer who can squint through 
 a glass, but to reckon stones avoirdupois at any distance 
 greater than arm's-length transcends any perception 
 that I have at command. 
 
 They are in a critical place, these deer. The only 
 mode of approach is from above, and the air is flying in 
 such capricious gusts on this lee side of the hill that it 
 will be wonderful luck if they do not get our wind. 
 But the attempt has to be made; we climb five hundred 
 feet higher, above the snow level, then strike along the 
 hill face again, and in half an hour are lying, not in
 
 SEPTEMBER 223 
 
 sight of the deer, but at a point well above them. The 
 ground is very steep and rough here, and we begin 
 slipping down feet foremost through the snow, careful 
 above everything not to dislodge any loose stones. A 
 small pack of ghost-like ptarmigan rise close at hand, 
 the old cock uttering his peculiar note between a purr, 
 a chuckle, and a crow. It is well they are not grouse, 
 which would have flown down the hill, and the game 
 would probably have been at an end. The ptarmigan 
 wheel upwards, and no harm is done ; when we arrive at 
 a convenient ledge and peer over, there are the beasts 
 still, about three hundred yards distant. The rifle is 
 withdrawn from the cover, and the downward crawl is 
 resumed ; far more cautiously now and by inches at a 
 time, because we can only trust to avoiding detection 
 by means of the closeness in hue of our garments to 
 the ground, and by reason that deer always keep a 
 sharper lookout below and around than they do above 
 them. Fifty yards is traversed in safety; suddenly a 
 little squall of wind puffs up behind us ; in an instant 
 every deer's head is in the air ; they draw together in 
 a clump, looking anxiously around, then begin to file at 
 a trot along the mountain side. The stalker thrusts 
 the rifle into my hands. 
 
 'Put up the 200 yards sight,' says he hoarsely. 
 ' There, take him, the second one ah, he 's covered ! ' 
 
 An officious hind has interposed her carcase between 
 me and her antlered lord; the herd turns down the 
 hill, offering nothing but a lot of bobbing sterns, then 
 suddenly wheel to the left, and lengthen out into a
 
 224 ANOTHER DAY ON THE HILL 
 
 string. They are cantering now, at a distance of fully 
 250 yards ; the chosen stag offers a fair broadside, but 
 so small that the foresight shuts him out of view as I 
 press the trigger. I see nothing for the smoke only 
 hear the stalker rapturously exclaim, ' Well done, by 
 ! You 're the right man in the right place, sir.' 
 
 Surprise, I candidly admit, was uppermost and first 
 in my mind, and it was not till I stood beside a ten- 
 pointer, shot fairly through the spine, that it yielded 
 permanent place to pride; for it was a difficult shot, 
 and, after all, one argues in such circumstances, although 
 success feels uncommonly like a fluke, it cannot be 
 entirely set down to that score. 
 
 Well, out of respect to ultra-humanitarians, I will not 
 recount how, after crossing the ridge in the teeth of the 
 gale, and lying for half-an-hour upon snow, and under 
 fierce blasts of sleet and rain, a second stag, heavier and 
 better than the first, was laid low ; but I ask them to 
 look on another scene, perhaps more to their fancy. My 
 homeward path lay along the boundary of the sanctuary 
 a vast hill, whereon no foot of stalker ever comes, nor 
 sound of rifle is heard. 
 
 After two hours of tempest, the sun had shone out 
 once more and sent its level rays into a great corrie, 
 wherein, through the glass, I could detect two herds, 
 numbering in all several hundred deer. They were 
 browsing peacefully or lying down, some of the young 
 stags indulging in mock combats, the calves gambolling 
 round their dams. What an aggregate of happy life, yet, 
 had some people their way, field sports would be cried
 
 SEPTEMBER 225 
 
 down as disgraceful indulgence of the worst passions 
 there would be no more stalking, no sanctuary, no red 
 deer on our hills at all. Wherein lies the ofience ? I sup- 
 pose I saw six hundred deer of sorts that day ; of these 
 I shot two a fair toll to take in return for the care 
 bestowed by man upon these wild animals, which, 
 moreover, he has delivered from their hereditary 
 enemies, the wolves. 
 
 LIU 
 
 For weeks Highland weather has been at its fairest : 
 morning after morning the mists had rolled The First 
 away on the breeze or melted before the face winter 
 of Phoebus, leaving that delicious briskness in the air 
 suggestive of gentle effervescence. One had almost for- 
 gotten the feeling of being soaked and blown upon. 
 ' Crawling ' a stratagem inseparable from stalking 
 had ceased to be more than agreeable exercise over a 
 fragrant surface as dry and soft as a drawing-room 
 carpet ; what wind there was we courted as a refresh- 
 ment, instead of cowering before it as a chastisement. 
 
 But the change came at last. Rising one morning 
 early it was the eve of S. Michael and All Angels 
 my eyes were greeted with streaming panes, my ears by 
 the whistling of a mighty wind among the chimney-pots. 
 My beat for the day was a high one, rising 2500 feet 
 above the lodge, which, it should be indicated, stands 
 1200 feet above the sea. Yet it was not perceptibly- 
 colder, and a stranger might have been beguiled out in 
 p
 
 226 THE FIRST BREATH OF WINTER 
 
 summer clothing. It takes a little experience of 
 Highland sport to adjust dress to remind one that 
 if there is any wind stirring, it is always most violent 
 on the tops ; that temperature falls one degree for 
 every three hundred feet of altitude, and that it is high 
 up that the longest lying-in-wait generally has to be 
 done. On the other hand, there is the danger of over- 
 clothing : it is difficult to say which invites the severest 
 suffering too many clothes and too thick, or too 
 few and thin. Luckily, as it turned out, I recognised 
 the change of the season, and sought out a good 
 old flannel-lined suit which had not done duty since 
 last winter. 
 
 We took the hill in pelting rain. Our course lay up 
 the bank of a stream, lately harnessed to the servile 
 duty of providing electric light for the lodge, already 
 swollen by the night's rain into an indignant torrent. 
 A mile of ascent, and we were out of sight of dynamo, 
 turbine, workshop, and all apparatus of man ; massive 
 mountains rose in front and on either hand ; nor house, 
 nor path, nor fence offended the eye ; the crowing of an 
 old grouse cock was the only sound save the rushing of 
 the stream. Another mile we had risen a thousand 
 feet now and we were spying a great corrie. Far up, 
 just below the mist that drove along the mountain top, 
 was a large company of deer feeding on a grassy slope. 
 
 Directly deer are spied the sportsman is reminded of 
 his inferiority to the official stalker. Up to that point he 
 may have maintained a degree of self-respect. He may 
 have successfully veiled his distress in climbing inter-
 
 SEPTEMBER 227 
 
 minable steeps ; he may have aped the careless confid- 
 ence with which his guide examines fen and corrie, 
 hill-face and crag as familiar to the guardian of the 
 beat as the chambers of a mansion to its housekeeper ; 
 he may even be as quick in detecting deer as the other ; 
 but as soon as they are detected, he falls into his place ; 
 he ceases to be an individual and becomes ' a rifle ' an 
 automaton to be set in motion by the master of the craft. 
 
 After a prolonged inspection through his glass of the 
 dusky objects a mile distant in the corrie, Donald pro- 
 nounces three out of the fifty or so to be good beasts and 
 ' shootable.' I am filled with marvel, as usual, at the 
 power of discernment, little short of superhuman, it 
 seems to me, which enables a man to pronounce the 
 weight and age of a creature so distant that it looks 
 like an undersized house-fly. I can tell a good head 
 afar off; but if I say anything about it, I am generally 
 told that it is accompanied by a poor body, and must 
 not be shot. So I have learned not only to be dumb 
 on such occasions, but to refrain from entertaining any 
 independent opinion whatever. 
 
 Well, Donald, having decided that the beasts were 
 worth stalking, set off on a detour of two or three miles, 
 to arrive within business range of them. Hitherto it 
 had been wet indeed very wet but the hill had given 
 shelter from the blast ; now, as we climbed the comb of 
 the ridge, it battered us to some purpose. Bitter, bitter 
 cold ; as we mounted higher the rain changed to sleet, 
 then to soft snow. Nothing to complain of, this, while 
 moving briskly; the trial came when we reached the
 
 228 THE FIRST BREATH OF WINTER 
 
 upper rim of the corrie. The ground here was covered 
 with loose shingle, boulders, and wan moss, scant cover 
 for three hundred yards of crawling on hands and knees, 
 which brought us again within sight of the deer ; after 
 that came a hundred yards ' on thy belly shalt thou 
 go/ commanded Donald in effect, by doing so himself 
 and wriggling along serpent-wise. To all his move- 
 ments I conformed, with my nose close to his hob-nails. 
 We were full in view of the deer now; the slightest 
 irregular movement on our part and some vigilant hind 
 would ' pick us up ' ; two hours ' labour would have been 
 wasted. 
 
 At last we came to a limit beyond which we could 
 not venture. Donald whispered that we must wait till 
 they fed within range. Now to wait thus in warm, dry 
 heather in sunshine is by no means the least lux- 
 urious part of hill work. But here to-day, plastered 
 prone on soaking moss, with a sharp stone digging into 
 the pit of one's stomach, snow driving into and melting 
 in one's ears, the wind piercing through wet tweed 
 and flannel as though it had been mousseline-de-laine 
 the question presented itself, 'Is this fun?' to be 
 answered only in the words quoted by Whyte-Mel- 
 ville, ' It may be sport, but I 'm d d if you can call 
 it pleasure ! ' 
 
 A pair of ptarmigan, indeed, strutting about among 
 the rocks, purred their contentment with matters mete- 
 orological and otherwise ; but who ever saw a dissatisfied 
 ptarmigan ? it is the very Mark Tapley among birds. 
 More sympathetic seemed a small wisp of golden plover
 
 SEPTEMBER 229 
 
 which flitted past among the falling flakes ; of all bird 
 voices, their pipe is the most melancholy; but they 
 went their way and left us flattened on unhappy 
 stomachs. Still the deer lingered, moving forward but 
 by inches. 
 
 I was beginning to wonder what might be the limits 
 of human endurance short of congelation, when Donald, 
 looking round, beckoned me with his eyelids to draw 
 up alongside of him. Slipping the rifle into my frozen 
 hands, he bid me take ' that beast the dark one behind 
 the four hinds.' My eyes were full of water born of 
 sheer physical misery; I saw nothing but indistinct 
 grey forms among grey boulders. At last, but with 
 difficulty, I recognised the stag he meant a fine, thick- 
 necked fellow, broadside on, about one hundred and 
 twenty yards off. I endeavoured to aim as I lay. 
 Impossible ! By no contortionist device could I attain a 
 posture which did not completely prevent every chance 
 of hitting the mark. Slowly I raised my numbed frame 
 into a sitting attitude; before I could draw the bead 
 they saw me; the good stag turned to fly, leaving 
 nothing to shoot at but his haunches ; but he had not 
 increased the distance between us by a score of yards 
 before the other deer, hitherto out of sight, came up out 
 of the corrie and turned him. Now was my chance, and a 
 fair one, could I only make use of it in my frozen state. 
 
 A steady aim at the stag's shoulder a pressure of 
 the trigger and a miss! 'Make sure of him now/ 
 whispered Donald, and certainly a fairer mark was 
 never offered. Crack ! I saw the bullet strike the
 
 230 CREATURES OF PREY 
 
 rocks in a way that showed me it had passed under the 
 stag's belly. 
 
 He was gone ! I had doubly bungled, but worse was 
 to follow. 
 
 More deer were coming up the pass. 'There, take 
 that one/ hissed Donald, cramming in a third cartridge 
 as a noble stag ambled by. It was hardly such an easy 
 shot as the first ; still, it was one which there was no 
 shadow of excuse for missing; nevertheless, missed 
 it was. 
 
 Drenched and dispirited, I descended the hill, con- 
 firmed in my boding that deer-stalking is not all plums 
 an impression which a successful stalk and neatly 
 killed stag in the evening has not entirely dispelled. 
 
 LIV 
 
 During a fortnight spent last year in Knoydart I 
 Creatures devoted some inquiry into the survival of 
 of Prey. certain of the rarer British mammals in that 
 wild region. Knoydart is the western moiety of Glen- 
 garry's ancient territory, which was once so finely 
 explained to an English lord by the chief's stalker, 
 Alastair Dubh, as they sat together on the summit 
 of Corrie Glas. ' All that you see,' he said, waving his 
 hands around, 'is Glengarry's'; but, of course, the 
 crowded hill-crests concealed a great deal of the 
 property, so he added, 'and all that you do not see, 
 that is Glengarry's also!' There are Macdonalds still 
 in the lonely Knoydart glens, though the soil has
 
 SEPTEMBER 231 
 
 passed into the power of the Saisneach. Among them 
 there are those who still can tell of that day of sorrow, 
 half a century ago, when the great chief, hopelessly in- 
 solvent, yielded up his vast possessions and passed 
 forth an exile, or at least an emigrant, with three 
 families of his clan, to cross the great water and seek 
 subsistence in the new world. The chief died, and his 
 line has failed; but many of his people prosper and 
 multiply exceedingly beyond the sea. 
 
 After that the land was parcelled out in great sheep 
 farms; the native woods, already sorely displenished 
 by their needy owners, shrank still further up the 
 steep ground, and the heather on many a hill paled 
 away before the spreading grass. But soon the time 
 came when sheep ceased to pay, and now great tracts 
 are given up to deer, to the mighty indignation of those 
 who would prefer a starving, compulsorily indolent 
 population of crofters to the well-housed, well-clad, 
 well-paid stalkers, gillies, and yacht hands who now 
 occupy the holdings. 
 
 These successive changes, added to the development 
 of grouse-shooting, which became popular during the 
 second quarter of the present century, have told with 
 marked effect on the wild life of the Highlands. Some 
 species have been displaced, brought to the verge of ex- 
 termination, while others have multiplied enormously. 
 At the end of the century we are able to strike the 
 balance of loss and gain from the point of view of 
 sportsman and naturalist, and it is not so disap- 
 pointing as some believe.
 
 232 CREATUEES OF PREY 
 
 Before the days of sheep-farming on a large scale 
 there was no inducement to destroy predatory beasts 
 and birds those animals which the gamekeeper classes 
 as vermin. It is true that the right qualification for 
 the title of sportsman was held in the Highlands of 
 old to consist in having killed a royal stag, an eagle, 
 an otter, and a salmon ; but no systematic trapping or 
 shooting went on except for the larder. Inasmuch, 
 however, as foxes, wild cats, eagles, and ravens have a 
 distinct partiality for tender lamb, it became part of 
 the duty of shepherds to wage relentless war against 
 these interesting animals. Then came the grouse pre- 
 server, whose keepers extended the list of proscription 
 to include every creature of which the habits were open 
 to the slightest suspicion. The trap, especially the 
 cruel pole-trap, and gun were set to work on a scheme 
 of extermination. In his interesting little sketch of 
 Glengarry lately published, Mr. Edward Ellice gives the 
 following list of 'vermin' trapped in the first-named 
 glen between 1837 and 1840 : 
 
 *11 Foxes. *27 White-tailed eagles. 
 
 *198 Wild cats. 18 Ospreys. 
 
 *78 House cats (going wild). *98 Blue hawks (sparrow- 
 
 *246 Martens. hawks). 
 
 *106 Polecats. *7 Orange-legged falcons 
 
 *301 Stoats and weasels. (? peregrines). 
 
 67 Badgers. *11 Hobbies. 
 
 *48 Otters. *275 Kites. 
 
 *15 Golden eagles. *5 Marsh harriers.
 
 SEPTEMBER 233 
 
 *63 Goshawks. *9 Ash - coloured hawks 
 
 285 Common buzzards. (Montagu's harrier). 
 
 371 Rough-legged buzzards.*1431 Hooded crows. 
 3 Honey buzzards. 475 Ravens. 
 
 462 Kestrels. 35 Horned owls (? short-eared 
 
 78 Merlins. owl). 
 
 *63 Hen harriers. 71 Fern owls (goatsuckers). 
 
 *6 Jerfalcons. 3 Golden owls (? barn owl). 
 
 *8 
 
 Now in this truly remarkable list those species which 
 may be properly classed as injurious to game are 
 marked with an asterisk ; perhaps the raven should be 
 starred also. I have not found it in my heart to in- 
 clude the osprey; for, although he preys on fish, what 
 sportsman can grudge this gallant bird the quarry he 
 takes in such chivalrous fashion, swooping from the 
 cloud to the flood ? Buzzards, kestrels, merlins, owls 
 it is not too late to plead for them even now; and 
 although they do occasionally learn vicious ways near 
 the crowded pheasant pens, surely we know enough of 
 their habits by this time to pronounce them absolutely 
 harmless on grouse ground. Then the unlucky fern- 
 owls, damned in the past by a series of misleading and 
 injurious synonyms goatsucker, night-hawk, fern-owl 
 it is only by rubbing in the truth, in season and out 
 of season, that Cimmerian ignorance can be brought to 
 understand that Caprimulgus is neither hawk nor owl, 
 nor sucks the milk of any living creature, but is, in 
 fact, nothing more terrible than a nocturnal swallow,
 
 234 CREATURES OF PREY 
 
 most beautiful and useful withal, seeing that he preys 
 solely on flying insects, chafers, and the like. The 
 stoat and the weasel are bracketed together; but 
 if the former be handed over justly to the executioner, 
 it is base ingratitude to forget the services of the latter, 
 which is by profession mouse- and vole-hunter. Gold- 
 en eagles may be reckoned out of danger. In many 
 deer forests they are now strictly preserved; for 
 although they do occasionally drive a hind or her calf 
 over a precipice, striking at her with their mighty 
 wings, there is plenty of provender for these noble 
 birds as long as ptarmigan and blue hares abound. 
 Moreover, they have not a stomach too proud for 
 carrion. The white-tailed sea-eagles have not fared 
 so well. They are more apt to fix an eyrie on a sea 
 cliff, open to all who have nerve and a rope, and this 
 species is far less common now than the golden eagle. 
 Perhaps the most notable features in the Glengarry list 
 are the jerfalcons, goshawks, and kites. The goshawk 
 bred in Strathspey when Colonel Thornton was there 
 in 1786, but the occurrence in North Britain of a single 
 specimen of any of these three birds of ravin is now 
 among the rarest of events. 
 
 Vanishing land mammals formed the subject of a 
 recent paper in the Edinburgh Review (1898), the 
 writer indicating wild cats and polecats as the next 
 animals to follow bears, wolves, and wild swine to 
 extermination in Britain. I believe them to be in 
 less peril than they were before the extension of deer 
 forests. These great solitudes, especially those which
 
 SEPTEMBER 235 
 
 contain fragments of the old woodland or tracts of 
 modern plantation, afford harbour for ' vermin ' which, 
 in a deer forest, it is nobody's interest to destroy. Small 
 game, such as grouse and hares, are not encouraged on 
 stalking ground, neither is it desirable to disturb such 
 ground by the operations of trapping. Hence, both the 
 true wild cat and the marten are actually increasing 
 in Knoydart, which abounds in steep, shaggy hillsides, 
 clothed for miles with indigenous birch, alder, and a 
 few pines. It is only accidentally that a marten 
 occasionally gets into a trap set for rabbits or others ; no 
 man knows how many there may be, for instance, in that 
 wild thicket, the Bachd-an-vich-tosaich (wood of the 
 chiefs son), which runs to the height of over a thousand 
 feet on the pass between Loch Hourn and Loch Nevis. 
 Last winter only one chanced to fall a victim, for the 
 stalker told me he was at pains to avoid killing martens, 
 and the beautiful fur of this one suggested wonder that 
 no Highland proprietor has adopted the suggestion for 
 a fur farm, which was thrown out a couple of years 
 ago by a writer in the Spectator. The prodigious price 
 given in open market for marten skins ought to ensure 
 a profitable return on the outlay of fencing and tending 
 the animals, which require no more elaborate diet than 
 their cousin the ferret. Polecats or foumarts appear to 
 have become really extinct in this region, though they 
 still linger in others less wild and remote ; but as the 
 polecat is identical with the domestic ferret, no difficulty 
 need be experienced in restoring the species if desired. 
 The albino variety of polecat is usually preferred as a
 
 236 CREATURES OF PREY 
 
 ferret by gamekeepers; the wild type is the brindled 
 kind. 
 
 As for wild cats, I examined the skins of six which 
 were taken during last winter (1897-98). They were all 
 of young animals, nearly full grown, kittled in a wood 
 not far from the lodge, but could scarcely be mistaken for 
 domestic cats gone wild. The short, dense tail, closely 
 ringed with black, and the beautifully ' tabby ' fur, 
 warmed with russet inside the flanks, combined with 
 the great size of the skins, seemed to indicate that they 
 belonged to the true Felis catus, and that if any cross 
 had taken place with Felis domestica (itself only a 
 mongrel descendant of the wild cat), the foreign strain 
 had been completely worked out, and reversion to the 
 original type completed. Unluckily, these fine skins 
 were swarming with moths, and were utterly ruined. 
 Moreover, the heads unluckily had been removed from 
 these six skins ; and as none of the bones had been 
 preserved, all that it was possible to affirm upon the 
 evidence was the probability that in this remote wilder- 
 ness, extending from Morar to Loch Hourn, the true 
 wild cat was still to be found. It is well known to 
 British naturalists that Dr. Edward Hamilton has 
 entered very closely into the evidence bearing on the 
 survival of this beast of prey in our islands, and has 
 expressed an opinion that none remain unadulterated 
 with greater or lesser strain of the domestic cat. On 
 the other hand, it is equally well known that cats 
 exist in certain parts of the Highlands, exhibiting 
 all the signs in size, colour, and shape or tail of our
 
 SEPTEMBER 237 
 
 native catamountain, showing that the admixture of 
 Felis domestica, if it ever existed in this race, has been 
 bred out, and a complete reversion effected to the feral 
 type. 
 
 Well, on leaving Knoydart I straitly charged the 
 head stalker to let me hear of the first wild cat he 
 should get. These animals are not trapped in the 
 forest, which in Knoydart approaches more nearly to 
 the southron's apprehension of that term than it does 
 when used to express the ordinary deer ground of the 
 Highlands; for Knoydart contains many leagues of 
 shaggy hillside clad with birch, Scots pine, and other 
 trees. It is only when a cat descends to the plantations 
 near the lodge, or is taken in a trap set for otters, that 
 a capture is effected. It was vastly agreeable to receive 
 one night lately a telegram from my friend the stalker : 
 ' Wild cat secured : please forward instructions,' and 
 soon the reply was flashing back that it was to be sent 
 to the Director of the Natural History Department of 
 the British Museum. It is true that I was not without 
 some qualms. Was the beast alive or dead ? If alive, 
 would he prove a welcome morning visitor in South 
 Kensington ? However, all turned out right ; the poor 
 catamountain would never scrunch the neck of another 
 blue hare, seeing that its own skull proved to have been 
 irretrievably smashed. This was unfortunate, because 
 the bones of the head are important for the right 
 identification of species ; but doubtless it is a difficult 
 matter to deal delicately with a tiger even a British 
 tiger in a trap. I have received Dr. Oldfield Thomas's
 
 DECENTLY AND IN OKDER 
 
 report upon this animal, a fine adult male, as well as 
 upon another, a young male subsequently secured, and 
 both are pronounced to be indistinguishable from pure 
 Felis catus. These skins are now safely lodged in the 
 Museum at South Kensington. 
 
 LV 
 
 On a wet September afternoon lately, it was my lot 
 to attend a funeral in a remote part of the 
 and in west of Scotland. Most of us, I think, must 
 feel that in the ceremony of sepulture we 
 have reached less near perfection than in any other 
 social rite. It is associated in memory with a fussy 
 undertaker with rusty mutes like waiters suddenly 
 turned out of a third-class restaurant into open day 
 with a hideous hearse, tawdry in everything but colour 
 and with a crowd clad in the ugliest garments that 
 centuries of civilisation have evolved from the primeval 
 fig-leaves. It may be thought that a Scottish funeral 
 is even less satisfactory than others. Suffering as 
 much as an English one from the barbarities of the 
 undertaker's craft, it is also stripped of the solemnity 
 of ancient ritual; earth is committed to earth in a 
 silence that would seem heartless had it not a peculiar 
 pathos of its own. Once upon a time the Church of 
 Scotland was shaken to its foundations by violent 
 disputes about the right way of shaving priests from 
 ear to ear over the pate, as Columba prescribed, or in 
 a patch on the crown only, as was the practice of Rome.
 
 SEPTEMBER 239 
 
 But for three hundred and fifty years the Reformed 
 Kirk of Scotland has enjoyed immunity from the 
 miserable squabbling about prayers and vestments, 
 postures, and lights, which at this day so deeply vex 
 the children of her English sister children who seem 
 to be wasting half their playtime in disputes about 
 the rules of the game. For that immunity the Kirk 
 has to thank John Knox. When his flock at Frankfort- 
 on- Maine fell to quarrelling about the rules of the game 
 surplices, audible responses, kneeling at Communion, 
 and so on and would not play according to his rules, 
 he left them. Returning to Scotland, he took care 
 that, however many and warm might be the disputes 
 on questions of doctrine, there should be none within 
 his fold on these external ceremonies, and he swept 
 them all away. Clear and chill his stamp remains on 
 the national worship to this hour. What though there 
 be traced in populous places some timid renascence of 
 ceremonial display of gay university hood on sombre 
 gown, praiseworthy intolerance of bad music ? Did 
 you want to realise the effect of Knox's work the 
 shuddering recoil from all semblance of sacerdotalism 
 you should have stood beside me on that September 
 afternoon. 
 
 It was in grey Galloway not grey, then, so much as 
 green, for there, during all the months you in the south 
 had been gasping for rain, the clouds had been dropping 
 fatness; while your pastures were shrivelled to the 
 colour and texture of bast matting, ours were lush 
 and dank with herbage; while the tongues of East
 
 240 DECENTLY AND IN ORDER 
 
 Londoners clave to the roofs of their mouths, millions 
 upon millions of gallons were rolling through our 
 thousand glens, driving an amber stain across the azure 
 of the firth. 
 
 There had been a death in the ' big hoose ' not one 
 of the laird's own blood, but the nearest thing to it 
 the death of the aged housekeeper, who had seen three 
 lairds in succession. By no social alchemy can such 
 ties be woven as linked this venerable dame to the 
 house she served for half a century, any more than 
 flesh and blood can be built in a mould by nice com- 
 mixture of phosphates, nitrates, cellular tissue, and what 
 not. Served yes, her sphere was service, but of that 
 kind which acquires a strong blend of authority. The 
 accident of primogeniture caused a boy born in such a 
 house to become its master ; but he would as soon have 
 thought of cutting down his 'dule tree' the im- 
 memorial ash standing beside the courtyard, symbol of 
 the obsolete baronial right of pit and gallows as of 
 discharging the stately regent of ' the room.' Though 
 not specified in his charters, she was as much part of 
 his inheritance as hill and dale, pasture and cornland, 
 woods and plains, moors, marshes, turbaries, water- 
 mills, multures and minerals, hawkings, huntings, and 
 fishings, liberties and easements, parts and pendicles 
 tarn non nominata quam nominata, tarn sub terra 
 quam supra terram, tarn procul quam prope. Surer 
 fixity of tenure it were not in the power of the legis- 
 lature to bestow ; but just as the 'dule tree' may yield 
 to the gale some winter's night, so the old housekeeper
 
 SEPTEMBER 241 
 
 has gone down under the power before which all 
 mortals must bow. No more the maids shall tremble 
 under her rebuke; no more her stiff silk shall rustle 
 in the long passages; no more shall she reckon her 
 legions of white jars in which it was her pride to store 
 the fruit of so many summers and autumns. She has 
 died at her post, with the keys of office in her hand, 
 and they are about to bring her out of the front door 
 to her burial. 
 
 The scene is grimly simple. On the gravel sweep 
 before the house are gathered a hundred or so of sable 
 figures ; all men, of course, according to the ancient but 
 unwritten law which keeps women behind drawn blinds 
 on these occasions. The laird is there, and some of his 
 tenants, a few tradesmen from the village, and the 
 fellow-servants of the departed. The fair park stretches 
 away to the sloping woods, among which lies the lake 
 a broad silver shield beneath drifting clouds. On 
 the lawn, just behind the mourners, my eye rests on a 
 suggestive, though inanimate, group of two. A tall 
 grey pillar-stone, one of those disc-headed crosses of 
 the early Celtic Church, covered with intricate orna- 
 ment on every inch of surface, seems to repeat the 
 message intrusted to it by pious hands a thousand 
 years ago the message of peace on earth and goodwill 
 towards men. Close beside it is a very different object, 
 charged with another message. This also is orna- 
 mented : it bears the Russian eagle, for it once formed 
 part of the armament of the Great Redan of Sebastopol, 
 peace and goodwill among men being scarcely the 
 Q
 
 242 DECENTLY AND IN ORDER 
 
 cause of its transportation to this distant island. 
 What a space of centuries is covered by these two 
 memorials! Has the message of the first been a 
 failure ? If not, how explain the scale of our annual 
 war estimates ? What connection with either has the 
 Tsar's pacific rescript of yesterday or President Kruger's 
 bold defiance to-day ? 
 
 This train of vague musing is interrupted by the 
 appearance of the minister on the steps, bible in hand. 
 He wears no gown ; and though his white head is bare, 
 we remain covered while he reads a chapter from the 
 Old Testament and another from the New ; but when 
 he closes the book, we all doff our hats while he offers 
 an unwritten prayer. We have no ritual in Scotland 
 we are inclined to plume ourselves on that but not 
 the less are we scrupulous to conform to etiquette, 
 custom, or whatever it is that prescribes exactly what 
 to do at each part of the ceremony. 
 
 The prayer over, we get into carriages of various 
 kinds 'machines' we call them here and, forming 
 an unpretentious procession, wind slowly down the 
 approach, out among the recent stubbles, through the 
 little seaport town, where flags drop at half-mast on 
 the few craft in harbour, and so for some miles to the 
 solitary kirk with its green fold under the sighing ash- 
 trees. Green and grey those are the dominant tones 
 in the landscape ; and so we lay the grey hairs under 
 the green turf, and part, with no more said.
 
 ctofcer 
 
 LVI 
 
 THERE can be no true lover of nature no sportsman 
 in the right sense of the term whose heart Trap 
 has not bled for the suffering inflicted upon reform 
 wild creatures by traps. Of all the sights which one 
 encounters in a woodland walk, there is none more 
 pitiable than that of a rabbit writhing in anguish, with 
 crushed limb and bleeding flesh, in the jaws of an iron 
 trap, or crouching low in the terror that overpowers 
 all other torment. Trapping is a dire necessity: it 
 is the only permanently effective way of keeping 
 rabbits within reasonable numbers. Snaring with wire 
 nooses is more merciful, for the creature is generally 
 throttled outright, and it answers very well for a while ; 
 but after a few days it scares the rabbits from their 
 runs, and the game is up. The invention of a painless 
 trap has long been the dream of many owners of game 
 preserves; and Colonel Coulson of Newbrough, Four- 
 stones-on-Tyne, has sent me a sample of one, invented 
 by himself, which goes a long way to realise what is 
 desired. This trap is the same in every respect as the 
 ordinary one, save that it has no teeth. Instead of
 
 244 TRAPaKEFORM 
 
 teeth there is riveted inside each of the jaws a stout 
 strip or pad of corrugated rubber which gives quite as 
 secure a grip as teeth, without lacerating the skin or 
 smashing the bones. 
 
 The next thing is to persuade gamekeepers (a most 
 conservative race) and trappers to use it. Some of 
 them are sure to find objections to it; but others, it 
 is certain, will gladly adopt an invention which rids the 
 business of a trapper from some of its most unpleasant 
 features. John Newbiggin writes as follows : 
 
 ' For thirty-six years I have been gamekeeper at Nunwick 
 to the Allgood family, and have trapped more rabbits pro- 
 bably than any man in Northumberland. I have tried 
 Colonel Coulson's rabbit-trap for nearly three weeks. I 
 never thought it possible that such a trap could have been 
 arrived at. It holds firmly without piercing the skin. I 
 laid out rabbits that had been caught in it and the old " gin." 
 In the former there were no marks, while those caught by 
 the " gin " had broken and pierced legs. I consider this trap a 
 thoroughly humane invention, and am much taken with it.' 
 
 My own gamekeeper, whom I desired to test one of 
 these traps, reports : ' I have now caught over a dozen 
 rabbits in the new trap without one of them having a 
 broken leg; and even the skin of the leg was not 
 broken.' These are expert opinions, and ought to put 
 the old and barbarous gin out of use in all establish- 
 ments where there is the slightest pretence to humanity. 
 It is not likely, indeed, that trapping will be rendered 
 thereby absolutely painless to rabbits. Probably it is 
 the anguish of terror which inflicts the keenest suffering
 
 OCTOBER 245 
 
 on a wild animal suddenly trapped. It is known that 
 human beings who have been mangled by lions and 
 tigers have declared afterwards that they were uncon- 
 scious of physical pain at the moment. But at least 
 Colonel Coulson's trap inflicts no traumatic injury ; the 
 animals are captured in better condition for the market 
 or the larder than by the common gin; and, if the 
 inventor cannot expect much gratitude from the 
 immediate objects of his consideration, he deserves to 
 receive it from dog owners, who, when their favourites 
 accidentally get caught, will have no more smashed 
 bones and bleeding feet to mourn over. I hope that 
 Colonel Coulson's trap will receive the attention it 
 deserves, and get a fair trial. 1 
 
 LVII 
 
 Autumn is upon us, and among the many familiar 
 harbingers of cooler days and lengthening Autumn 
 nights may be noticed one visitor which used n wers 
 to be reckoned exceptional, and has always been 
 capricious in its appearance. The clouded yellow 
 butterfly (Colias edusa) was formerly reported at long 
 and uncertain intervals, suddenly appearing in the 
 autumn of certain seasons in considerable numbers. 
 It is believed that none of the chrysalids survive the 
 winter of these islands, and that these occasional autumn 
 
 i The makers are Messrs. Tinsley and Co., Old Hill, Staffordshire, 
 and the traps cost about fivepence each more than the ordinary 
 toothed gins.
 
 246 AUTUMN FLOWERS 
 
 flights are the progeny of parents blown hither from 
 the Continent in spring. But the visits of the clouded 
 yellow seem to be getting more frequent : we had this 
 fine insect in abundance all over Britain in 1892, again 
 in 1895, last year in smaller numbers, and now once 
 more, in 1897, it is dancing over the turnip fields in 
 the west of Scotland. Is it possible that it has come 
 to stay, and may hereafter be reckoned among our 
 resident species ? 
 
 More obvious to casual observers than the signs of 
 departing summer offered by insects are those apparent 
 in the annual movement of the bird population. The 
 cuckoos and nightjars have departed; but just now the 
 land is full of innumerable wheatears leisurely moving 
 south. Every cyclist must surely have noticed those 
 charming birds, flitting among the roadside fence, 
 perching in front of him, whisking off with a flourish of 
 gleaming white tails at his approach, to alight again only 
 to repeat the same manoauvre times without number. 
 Here, in Scotland, the wheatear has nothing to fear 
 from man ; a nation of farmers ought to be only too glad 
 to welcome flocks of this beneficent insect-eater, but I 
 am afraid a heavy toll is taken when the flight reaches 
 lower latitudes. The shepherds of the South Downs 
 snare hundreds of them for the market. Yarrell quotes 
 the Linnean Society as authority for the statement 
 that upwards of a thousand have been taken in a single 
 day by one shepherd, and in Pennant's time the annual 
 bag near Eastbourne was reckoned at twelve thousand. 
 Still, it cannot be said that there is any apparent
 
 OCTOBER 247 
 
 diminution in the numbers passing through the island, 
 and this year these seem to be even greater than 
 usual. 
 
 In the garden no season is more charming than the 
 present. Spring flowers may be fairer and more pre- 
 cious, summer blossoms more lavish, but none more 
 varied or more richly coloured than those of autumn. 
 Perhaps our gardeners are at special pains to prepare a 
 feast of colour for those who choose to forgo the 
 delights of the country life till summer is past. This 
 was the excuse for the bedding-out furore while it 
 lasted ; but now that this, happily, has worn itself out, 
 it is found that the once despised 'herbaceous stuff' is 
 quite as capable as the other of affording a brilliant 
 display in September. The post brings plenty of 
 nursery and florist catalogues just now, and the man 
 with an eye to future seasons may do worse than take 
 one of these in his hand and compare the descriptions 
 given with the actual effect in the borders. 
 
 The most gorgeous blossoms in the autumn borders 
 are undoubtedly those of the Japanese golden-rayed 
 lily, and it is right to recruit the stock of these each 
 year ; for no amateur known to me, save Mr. G. F. Wilson, 
 in his wonderful garden at Weybridge, can reckon on 
 more than ten per cent, of the bulbs remaining vigorous 
 after flowering. Mr. Wilson's secret or is it his soil 
 or a combination of both ? enables him to grow and 
 propagate these splendid lilies as abundantly as a 
 common man might grow hawkweed; he has many 
 imitators, but no rivals in success. Only this try and
 
 248 AUTUMN FLOWEES 
 
 get homegrown bulbs, even if they cost you twice as 
 much as imported ones, and insist on having the robust 
 variety known as Lilium awratum platyphyllum. 
 
 Torch lilies (commonly called ' red-hot pokers ') are 
 of many species, and by careful selection the flowering 
 season may be arranged to extend from August to the 
 first hard frost. Strange that a native of Africa should 
 be as much at home under our cloudy skies as any 
 common flag. The blossoms of all the torch lilies have 
 a strong family likeness, varying slightly in fiery tones. 
 For some recondite reason it has been decreed at Kew 
 that the whole genus hitherto known by the easy title 
 of Tritoma, shall in future answer to the awkward 
 name of Knifophia or Kniphofia ; but as I have 
 forgotten how to spell the new name, I must continue 
 to use the old one for the present. The dwarf 
 Tritoma Macowani a charming species has flowers 
 of soft red; the largest kind, T. nobilis, is also the 
 latest to flower, and should have a warm, sunny 
 border under a wall, so as to coax it forward. The 
 handsomest in foliage is T. caulescens, with a yucca- 
 like crop of glaucous leaves growing from the top of a 
 thick stem, and flowering earlier than the rest of the 
 family. Talking of yuccas, how much too seldom are 
 they grown. Yucca gloriosa is an aggravating plant, 
 remaining sullenly flowerless for half a lifetime, then 
 suddenly sending up a fountain of thousands of creamy 
 bells. But T. filamentosa is much more free, and a 
 group of a dozen of these may be reckoned on giving 
 an average of three fine spikes each year.
 
 OCTOBER 249 
 
 Turning from the giants of the border to the dwarfs, 
 there is no more constant friend in autumn than the 
 Colchicum, known to young ladies (erroneously) as the 
 autumn crocus, and to boys (vulgar ones, of course) as 
 ' naked ladies.' But the prince of colchicums is seldom 
 seen, though quite as easily grown as the common sorts. 
 This is C. speciosum twice or thrice the size of any 
 other, and most desirable for its beautiful chalice of 
 clear rose. Of the true autumn crocus, by far the best 
 is Crocus speciosus, which grows like any weed, and 
 sends up crowds of veined cups of violet hue, contrast- 
 ing admirably with the brilliant orange stigmata. 
 
 The heaths are too well known to need mention, but 
 one of the family flowering at this season is not so 
 often seen as it deserves to be. This is the shrub 
 Clethra loaded with spikes of white May-scented bloom. 
 Of three or four species, Clethra arborea is the best, 
 and alnifolia next. 
 
 A splendid addition has been made lately to yellow 
 autumn flowers in the shape of Rudbeckia vnaxima, a 
 really noble plant bearing large yellow solitary flowers, 
 with conical centres of maroon, on stems four feet high, 
 rising out of broad glaucous leaves. Another notable 
 yellow is a shrubby St. John's wort (Hypericum oppo- 
 sitifolium), rarer and far more choice than H. Patulum 
 which nurserymen are prone to substitute for it, and 
 unsurpassed even by the new hybrid H. Mozerianum, 
 though that is a fine thing too. Among blue flowers, 
 Veronica subsessilis is conspicuous in this month, with 
 solid spikes of deep lapis-lazuli colour. The vast variety
 
 250 AUTUMN FLOWERS 
 
 of Gladiolus is apt to debauch the judgment for shades 
 of red ; but the glowing Monarda didyma, known as 
 ' bee balm ' in its native North America, and first cousin 
 of the bergamot often seen in old-fashioned parterres, 
 pleases the eye with its rich velvety tone. Don't forget 
 the so-called purple groundsel (Senecio pulcher), which 
 bears an uncommon shade of rosy lilac on its spreading 
 rays. Then there are two pink flowers, of which almost 
 every visitor is sure to ask the name : one is the truly 
 exquisite Sparaxis pulcherrima, with large airy bells 
 dancing on arching, wiry stalks four feet high. The 
 other is a large stonecrop, Sedum spectabile (see you 
 get the true, bright rose variety), of which the broad, 
 crowded corymbs have a never-failing attraction for 
 wagtails by reason of the flies which gather round 
 them, and for red admirals and humming-bird moths, 
 by reason of the honey they contain. 
 
 Of white flowers there is abundance. Hydrangea 
 paniculata is perhaps the most showy, with its great 
 drifts of cream-tinted plumes; but for perfect grace 
 and beauty there is nothing to compare to the white 
 Japanese windflower (Anemone Japonica var. Honorine 
 Joubert). Blessed be Mr. William Robinson for bringing 
 this flower to common knowledge about a quarter 
 of a century ago ! The cult of the aesthetes is ex- 
 tinct, but while they were with us nothing excited their 
 withering wrath more surely than a display of white 
 and gold. Yet in what combination does Nature take 
 more delight from the trivial daisy to such master- 
 pieces as the magnolia, the water-lily, and the Madonna
 
 OCTOBER 251 
 
 lily ? And in no blossom are they painted more purely 
 than in this autumn windflower. 
 
 These and an innumerable host of other autumn 
 jewellery are at our disposal to furnish our gardens 
 withal, yet will they fail of half their charm unless the 
 setting is worthy of them. Straight borders of uniform 
 width are well enough for a mere collection, but far 
 more is wanted for a right floral gallery. If one re- 
 commends a background of shrubs, it is too apt to 
 suggest a dreary waste of that kind of plum which we 
 fondly call laurels (Primus pseudo-cerasus) or a still 
 more dismal thicket of another plum which we distin- 
 guish as Portugal laurel. If your climate suffers the 
 true laurel the sweet bay, the meed of heroes to grow, 
 it is well with you ; but if not, what an array of lovely 
 things there is to choose from the frosted silver of 
 Retinospora squarrosa, the emerald sheen of Choisya 
 ternata and Griselinia littoralis (we have no English 
 names for these recent acquisitions the first from 
 Brazil, the second from Japan), the feathery grace of 
 Indigofera, the upright forms of Lawson's cypress, the 
 roseate mist of Venetian sumach, and the boldly pinnate 
 sculpture and intense colour of the stag's-horn sumach. 
 Then there is the curious Desfontainea spinosa, which 
 pretends, with some success, to be a holly during the 
 early months, till one fine morning in August you find 
 it studded with scarlet and yellow trumpets three inches 
 long. Another surprise is Rhus toxicodendron, the 
 poison oak of the States, a meek, green leafy thing all 
 summer, blazing into matchless scarlet and yellow in
 
 252 WHERE TWO KINGDOMS MEET 
 
 autumn. It is usually sold under the harmless title of 
 Ampelopsis japonica, but beware ! it is a Rhus, and 
 dangerously, violently poisonous. 
 
 Half-a-dozen words must be spoken about choice 
 weeds, which, if you scatter the seeds thereof once, will 
 come up in all kinds of unexpected places for ever 
 after. Of such is the little Alpine toadflax (Linaria 
 alpina), with purple and orange clusters, another 
 toadflax (L. tristis) pied with maroon and yellow, a 
 third (L. crassifolia) with violet and white blooms, to 
 which may be added our native ivy-leaved toadflax 
 (L. cymbalaria) to drape old walls withal. The annual 
 species of Silene, as well as the Shirley poppy and its 
 cousins, Papaver alpinum and P. umbrosum, respond 
 generously to this kind of neglect. 
 
 LVIII 
 
 The whole firmament is looped and waved with 
 delicate grey cloud, save where, on the south, 
 kingdoms a low band of pale yellow throws the horizon 
 into relief. Although it is within an hour of 
 noon, a kind of twilight, peculiar to a northern ' back- 
 end/ renders even the near landscape indistinct; but 
 the oaks of Carham, sloping to the stream, burn like 
 red gold, and the river reach in the foreground gleams 
 like beaten silver. Every hill and hollow, every crag 
 and shaw, is full of historic meaning; for history is 
 made up of strife, and nowhere do people strive so 
 fiercely nowhere do they hate each other so bitterly
 
 OCTOBER 253 
 
 as on the banks of a great river. ' That fellow on 
 the other side!' why, the old meaning of rivalis, a 
 dweller on a rivus or river bank, is quite forgotten 
 in our use of the modern term ' rival.' Such a position 
 implies fighting just as surely as loitering at cross ways 
 trivia engenders gossip what is ' trivial.' This Tweed 
 is a river of rivers, across which for three centuries was 
 hurtled to and fro warfare of that woful, wasteful sort 
 that only brothers can wage. These brothers have 
 made up their quarrel now, and look back wondering 
 what on earth it was made them fall out. 
 
 The birthplace of the great dispute is close at hand 
 only a couple of fields off. Those few grey roofs, scat- 
 tered on yonder green ridge, are all that mark the site 
 of once famous Birgham-on-Tweed, where, on July 18th, 
 1290, the four guardians of Scotland, forty-four ecclesi- 
 astics, twelve earls, and forty-seven barons set their 
 seals to the treaty defining the relations which should 
 exist between their country and England after the 
 approaching marriage of Edward of Carnarvon, first 
 Prince of Wales, to Margaret, the child-Queen of Scot- 
 land the Maid of Norway. Even at the distance of 
 six centuries it is difficult to reflect without chagrin 
 on the shattering of this fair project by the untimely 
 death of the Maid. Fighting, doubtless, there would 
 have been in any case, so many were the facilities for 
 that pastime afforded by the feudal system, but not 
 three hundred years of butchery between people of 
 the same race and language. When Alexander in. 
 died, in 1285, the best king that ever sat on the
 
 254 WHERE TWO KINGDOMS MEET 
 
 throne of Scotland, he left his realm rich, his subjects 
 busy and prosperous, and in perfect amity with the 
 subjects of his nephew, Edward i. When, in 1603, 
 James vi. assumed the crown of both kingdoms, three 
 centuries of perpetual warfare had strained and drained 
 the resources of his northern realm to such a pitch 
 that the name of Scot had passed into a byword for 
 poverty among all the nations of the earth. 
 
 How different it all might have been sua si bona 
 norint ; and yet, morals and economics apart, who that 
 knows and loves the borders would have it otherwise 
 would exchange for ages of cumulative prosperity the 
 store of legend and ballad which consecrates the valley 
 of the Tweed ? Who can bring himself to deplore the 
 stern, sharp schooling which has left such lasting traces 
 on the character, physical and intellectual, of its 
 people ? 
 
 It is one of the chief charms of angling especially for 
 salmon that, in the intervals of action, one's thoughts 
 are free to gather up all that the neighbourhood has 
 to impart of its story ; and so this morning, as the 
 boatman, standing afar on the Scottish bank, allows 
 me at the end of his rope to drop foot by foot down 
 one of the most renowned casts in Tweed, and the 
 wavelets tinkle drowsily against the coble, my mind is 
 full of far-off days. I am in Scotland, but the building 
 on the further side of the bank is not a kirk, but an 
 English parish church. Every cast that I make sends 
 my fly across the frontier where two kingdoms meet 
 a line in mid-current as imaginary as that which once
 
 OCTOBER 255 
 
 so sharply severed people of the same race and speech. 
 Does it not seem ? My thoughts are smartly switched 
 off upon another course. As the fly sweeps round 
 the stream there is a sudden stoppage, the rod is 
 quickly raised, the good greenheart bends like a strip 
 of steel, and the reel plays out slowly as a heavy fish 
 dives among the rocks of the Kirkend. 
 
 There is no rush or flurry ; imagination has a good 
 deal to do with the description anglers are so fond 
 of giving of the racing and desperate struggles of 
 heavy fish. Truth to tell, these late autumn fish play 
 sluggishly, though with considerable vis inertice. At 
 nearly all times the speed of a salmon on the line 
 depends very much on the strength of the current ; 
 an eight-pound fish in a swift stream will afford his 
 captor far more excitement than an eight-and-twenty 
 pounder in still, deeper water. The current here is 
 no more than moderate, and the contest consists of a 
 series of resolute journeys to the deep water, followed 
 by reluctant yielding to the merciless pressure of good 
 silkworm gut. The water, however, is very shallow on 
 the Scottish shore, and the fish a heavy kipper 
 manifests a strong objection to daylight ; each time he 
 feels the gravel he puts on steam, and plunges heavily 
 back to the depths. At last, a broad gleam shows 
 beneath the wave ; he is on his broad side a sure sign 
 of exhaustion. Three minutes more and the boatman, 
 wading in to mid-leg, deftly passes the net under him, 
 and scoops out my first victim a thick-set/ shapely 
 fish of exactly four-and-twenty pounds.
 
 256 WHERE TWO KINGDOMS MEET 
 
 Once more the boat glides out at the rope's end, and 
 the fly a gay ' Kate ' with carmine bodice and golden 
 ruff is sent on its mission. ' A yard or two more line, 
 sir,' calls the boatman from the bank. ' He lies pretty 
 far over there.' Hardly is the command obeyed, when 
 a vigorous tug under water preludes another struggle 
 similar in all respects to the first, except that this 
 time the index of the steelyard only touches seventeen 
 pounds. 
 
 I have arrived now at the part of the cast known as 
 ' the Kitchen,' where the current slackens and the 
 river widens into a tranquil pool. Several fish are 
 showing there, but, alas ! there is not a breath stirring ; 
 the surface is glassy, and, save a single indolent roll at 
 the lure without effect, not a salmon of them all will 
 take the slightest notice of 'Kate.' So we make up 
 our minds to invade England : the boat is drawn up to 
 the top of the stream and rowed across ; operations are 
 begun from the right bank. By the time the foot of 
 the cast is reached another brace of salmon lie in the 
 boat, twenty and seventeen pounds. A short interval 
 for lunch follows, and we go off to try two other casts 
 in succession; but 'Flummie' a swirling, strong torrent 
 is too heavy to-day ; nothing looks up there. Down, 
 then, half a mile to the ' Three Stanes/ a famous place 
 for big fish. The current is held up here by a ' cauld ' 
 or weir, and rolls sullen and dark under a high cliff 
 on the Scottish shore, gorgeous with the leafy livery 
 of autumn. Oh, for a puff of wind ! It is distressingly 
 calm ; the line falls on the surface like a cart rope.
 
 OCTOBER 257 
 
 ' Come on ! ' it seems to say to that fine fellow who 
 has just glided up, head and tail, as stiff as a board in 
 mid-current ; ' come on ! here is something he wants 
 you to believe is dainty fare. Don't you believe a 
 word of it: it is not a fly, or a shrimp, or a fish, or 
 anything good to eat at all; but just a bundle of fur 
 and feather, with a well-tempered double hook, and 
 here am I behind it to drag you ashore, if you are 
 such a fool as to bite at it.' 
 
 Cast I never so delicately, the same explicit warning 
 is repeated again and again, with the effect that, 
 although the ' Sir Richard,' which I have substituted 
 for dainty ' Kate,' probably floats over the heads of 
 half a hundred fish, they only wink at it (or would 
 wink if they had the eyelids to wink withal), and 
 lie low. 
 
 There is not an hour of daylight left, just time for 
 another trial of the rippling Kirkend. Fishing down 
 the Scottish side, I hold a fish for a moment or two, 
 and he is off. Over to England again ; perhaps the 
 gloaming has brought some of the fish out of the 
 kitchen into the brisker water. Ha ! there he is, sure 
 enough ; marry ! the heaviest fish I have felt to-day. 
 He runs strong and deep, perhaps it is that forty- 
 pounder which I have been toiling after for nearly 
 as many years. It is almost dark when the question 
 is decided, and it is a little disappointing to find he 
 is only another twenty-pounder. Had I lost him, 
 he would have figured in this chronicle of far more 
 formidable weight. 
 
 R
 
 258 POCHAKDS AND TUFTED DUCK 
 
 The day is done, and as I wend my way home 
 through the shadows disappointment has no share in 
 my reflections, for many good fishing days produce 
 less than ninety-eight pounds of salmon. 
 
 LIX 
 
 For some years it has been evident that pochards and 
 tufted ducks are extending their breeding 
 and Tufted range in this country, and I am able for the 
 first time to certify that both these species 
 nest in Wigtownshire. The presence of odd pairs of 
 these birds during the summer, and the early appear- 
 ance of young ones, for many years past had given me 
 a pretty strong notion that they had not travelled very 
 far. This year a neighbour of mine obtained from a 
 keeper on Lord Bute's moors two lots of young ducks, 
 which turned out on inspection to be pochards and 
 tufted duck. There are seven lochs, some of them 
 pretty extensive and studded with islets, in the upper 
 part of this parish, and here, it seems, has been the 
 regular breeding-place of several pairs. Moreover, I 
 have a moral certainty that the scaup breeds there also, 
 though it is usually reckoned a marine duck. I saw 
 two pairs of scaup on my sanctuary lake in the middle 
 of April When I returned in the first week of 
 August there were nine. 
 
 Scaup, pochard, and tufted duck are all diving ducks, 
 not only nearly akin to each other, but associating 
 together habitually in the most friendly way. They
 
 OCTOBER 259 
 
 frequent the same feeding grounds, and eat the same 
 food ; but it is a remarkable thing that while the flesh 
 of scaup and tufted duck is rank and, if not uneatable, 
 next door to it, very unpalatable, the pochard, or dun- 
 bird, is one of the most excellent of ducks on the table. 
 It is the only diving duck known to me which is worth 
 powder and shot. 
 
 It is a curious thing that mallard, shoveller, widgeon, 
 and teal surface-feeding ducks have never learned to 
 dive for food. The accomplishment would be useful to 
 them ; for one may often see them poking their heads 
 and shoulders far under water in search of food, with 
 their tails sticking aloft in a very unbecoming manner. 
 Perhaps it is not considered good form in high aquatic 
 circles to dive under the table for victuals ; that surface 
 ducks can dive let any one testify who has pursued a 
 wounded mallard in the water. But in society they 
 don't do it, though they are not above gobbling up 
 the floating fragments dislodged from the bottom by 
 the diligence of their diving associates. 
 
 LX 
 
 A lovely object is before my eyes as I write. It is 
 only a common spindle tree (Euonymus 
 europceuus) about twelve feet high, but every 
 spray of it weighed down with its curious four-lobed 
 berries of a peculiar shade, which it would be hard to 
 match in other fruits. They are not crimson, like 
 haws, nor scarlet, like hips and holly berries, nor orange-
 
 260 BERRIES 
 
 red, like the pyr acanthus, but exactly the hue and 
 quality of rosy coral. Were the spindle a rare exotic 
 we should rave about it; standing in clear sunshine, 
 which turns its leafless boughs to silver, it gleams 
 against a dark background of yew with an effect of 
 marvellous beauty. Yet it is a native British shrub, 
 abundant enough in some English and Irish districts, 
 and establishing itself freely when introduced into 
 Scotland, although it seldom occurs to anybody as 
 worth planting. We cram our woodwalks and shrub- 
 beries with common rhododendrons and so-called 
 laurels, which are not laurels at all, but evergreen 
 plums (Prunus lauro-cerasus), till a wearisome mono- 
 tony makes one place resemble another as nearly as 
 possible. There are plenty of innocent persons who 
 believe this evergreen plum to have furnished the 
 original meed of heroes. Of course, it is not the true 
 triumphal laurel; that is the sweet bay (Laurus 
 nouns'), belonging to a widely distant order the 
 Lauracece the mock laurel being a member of the 
 rose tribe. Japan sends us plenty of evergreen spindles 
 also ; you may see nearly half a mile of seawall at 
 Brighton planted with Euonymus japonicus, which has 
 an advantage over the British species in being ever- 
 green, but vastly inferior to it in producing no lovely 
 fruit. The common spindle rejoices in one notable 
 attribute, that of holding a place in the very limited 
 list of ornamental shrubs that withstand the attacks of 
 rabbits. 
 
 Another British shrub at present very attractive by
 
 OCTOBER 261 
 
 reason of its fruit is the sea-buckthorn, or salloAv-'thorn 
 (HippophoR rhamnoides). It is a dicecious shrub, the 
 sexes being on separate plants, and the females only 
 bearing berries ; but these are thickly studded on every 
 twig with clusters of orange-yellow berries, contrasting 
 charmingly with the silvery foliage. Some varieties 
 bear brown berries, but such ought to be rigidly sup- 
 pressed. The popular name, sea-buckthorn, is rather 
 misleading, and arises from the fact that in England 
 the plant is only found wild on waste land near the sea, 
 but its real home is in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, 
 and it will be found to make itself quite at home in 
 inland places. 
 
 Of more vivid orange are the seeds of the gladdon, 
 or woodland iris (Iris fostidissima), now displayed in 
 many a south-country hedgerow by the opening of the 
 large triple capsule containing them. This is a herb 
 which is well worth planting in those parts of the 
 country where it does not come spontaneously ; it takes 
 care of itself in waste places under trees : and as for the 
 uncomplimentary title bestowed upon it by men of 
 science, why, the worst that can be alleged against it is 
 that the leaves when bruised give out an odour of cold 
 roast beef. If that is unpleasant to you, don't bruise 
 the leaves. 
 
 One of the most curious, and at the same time most 
 showy, British berries is the fruit of the butcher's 
 broom (Ruscus aculeatus). It is borne abundantly in 
 the southern counties, but will not ripen beyond the 
 northern limits of the nightingale, though the plant
 
 262 BERRIES 
 
 itself grows freely enough when planted in Scotland. 
 It is a paradoxical little shrub, something like a stunted 
 holly in aspect, but being in reality a kind of lily. 
 Its true leaves have wasted into minute scales under- 
 neath leaf-like branches, each ending in a stout prickle. 
 In the middle of the sham leaf appears in spring a tiny, 
 whitish flower, to be followed in autumn by a relatively 
 immense scarlet berry. 
 
 It is rather a crying mischief at present, the prevail- 
 ing neglect of native plants. As Mr. Cornish has 
 pointed out lately in his charming book, Wild England 
 of To-day, a well-marked tract of country consisting of 
 sand formation, stretching from Dorking and Ascot to 
 Bournemouth, has suddenly been recognised as ' eligible 
 building property,' and is being converted rapidly 
 ' into one immense residential suburb, composed of 
 houses graded to suit all incomes from 500 a year 
 upwards.' Now the characteristic vegetation of this 
 district consists of heather and pines, fern and furze. 
 The speculative builder's first care is to efface these, to 
 lay out ' grounds ' which it is the seedman's business to 
 provide with lawn, inasmuch as heather is incompatible 
 with croquet and lawn tennis, and the nurseryman's to 
 furnish with shrubberies. Naturally, the nurseryman 
 dumps down whatever he happens to have in stock, of 
 which rhododendrons, mock-laurels, and that most 
 dismal of all shrubs, the Portugal laurel (also a plum), 
 are sure to be most plentiful. There will also be a 
 variety of the newer conifers, wholly irrespective of 
 whether they be dwarf Retinospora, suitable in stature
 
 OCTOBER 263 
 
 for a modest garden, or Californian Abies, which start 
 with the intention of soaring to eight score of feet. 
 Things like these take such vigorous hold and grow so 
 strongly that it requires a regular siege-train to dis- 
 lodge them ; meanwhile, the native flora, which consti- 
 tuted the chief attraction of the place, have been 
 expelled for ever or relegated to an ever-narrowing 
 hinterland. 
 
 Reflecting upon the divine summer just gone by (1899), 
 what a variety of beautiful berries one may call to 
 mind ! Among the earliest of these is the cloudberry 
 (Rubus chamTnceorus) of the Highland hills, delicate in 
 form and flavour, the whole plant not six inches high, 
 balancing, on the windy moor, its large amber-hued 
 fruit among ample, lobed leaves. Not less dainty is its 
 relative, also affecting northern latitudes, the stone- 
 berry (R. saxatUis) with bright red fruit. Of duskier 
 crimson and less transparent is the wood raspberry 
 (R. idceus), the fruit of Mount Ida, to appreciate 
 which, you should spend a day on the hill, and descend- 
 ing in the evening faint and leg-weary, refresh your- 
 selves with the delicious subacid of the wild plant. 
 The rowan, which yields the proper jelly to eat with 
 venison, will not be forgotten, nor yet a host of little 
 mountain and wood fruits, the purple blaeberry or 
 whortleberry, the jetty crowberry a veritable little 
 mountain grape and the cranberry, cowberry, and 
 bearberry, all red. But the most brilliant and curious 
 fruit among our British wild plants is not a berry at all, 
 in botanical language, but a drupe, and a remarkably
 
 264 BERRIES 
 
 tasteless one too, as you will find if you expect some- 
 thing succulent. This is produced by the eccentric 
 dwarf cornel (Gornus suecica), found in this country 
 on the Scottish mountains and in a few places in 
 Northumberland and Yorkshire. This curious and 
 beautiful little herb belongs to the dogwood family, and 
 has many aristocratic and important relatives, such as 
 our native dogwood, the Japanese aucuba and others. 
 Its small, dark purple flowers are gathered into a flat 
 cushion surrounded by four snowy-white, petal-like 
 bracts, making up a very showy inflorescence, which 
 has a strangely exotic effect in the mountain solitudes. 
 The fruit which follows is of the intense scarlet of 
 sealing-wax, and delights the deerstalker, if he has eyes 
 for anything besides his quarry, by the brilliancy with 
 which its lowly clusters light up grey rocks and brown 
 heath. 
 
 Most beautiful of all British shrubs, if you take 
 foliage, flower, and leaf into account, is the arbutus of 
 Killarney. Alas ! that it should be tender in less 
 favoured parts of our islands, and, alas ! that even in 
 those seaside places where it thrives, it is not more 
 commonly planted. Its pendulous fruit has a deli- 
 ciously edible appearance, but the botanists have well 
 named it Arbutus unedo (unum edo), inasmuch as he 
 who tries one will not hanker for more. 
 
 Among exotic berry-bearers let me name one which 
 deserves special favour from landscape-gardener 
 namely, the tree cotoneaster (C. frigidus). Its large 
 leaves are semi-evergreen, and the scarlet fruit hangs in
 
 OCTOBER 265 
 
 festoons among them till after Christmas, birds pre- 
 ferring the haws and holly berries as long as they last. 
 It grows twenty feet high, very different in appearance 
 from the cotoneasters used as wall plants, and is per- 
 fectly hardy and rabbit-proof.
 
 LXI 
 
 THE Royal Commission on Tweed and Solway salmon- 
 Autumn on fishings, which reported in 1896, unanimously 
 the Tweed en dorsed the recommendation which the 
 Fishery Boards of England and Scotland have repeatedly 
 made. Salmon can only spawn, they point out, and 
 anglers can only ply their art, in fresh water ; netting, 
 therefore, which means the wholesale destruction of fish 
 entering the rivers to spawn, should be restricted to 
 tidal waters and the open sea. A fair proportion of 
 every run of fish throughout the season should be 
 allowed to escape, to ensure the maintenance of the 
 race, and to prevent salmon-fishing becoming the exclu- 
 sive privilege of very rich men, who can afford to buy 
 off the nets. 
 
 ' After all,' says the pedantic political economist, 
 ' angling is only an amusement, and is of no importance 
 compared with the commercial business of food supply. 
 So long as the nets catch plenty of salmon, the Legislature 
 need not interfere.' 
 
 Yes, but suppose, as Scotch lairds are beginning to 
 realise, that angling rights command a better rent than
 
 NOVEMBER 267 
 
 netting, do not the protection and development of the 
 former assume commercial importance ? 
 
 Meanwhile, except in a few large rivers like the 
 Aberdeenshire Dee and the Welsh Usk, where well- 
 organised associations have taken spirited action, and 
 in some small ones which are let at high ransoms to 
 wealthy sportsmen, it is hardly worth casting a fly 
 between seedtime and harvest. In the Tweed, for 
 example, once prolific in salmon and trout beyond any 
 other British river, a few fish may be taken with rod in 
 the lower reaches fish that have run up before the 
 nets begin their deadly work, or that have managed to 
 run the gauntlet in the floods of February Fill-dyke. 
 A summer flood, that used to bring William Scrope 
 to his beloved Craigover as surely as it sent Tom 
 Stoddart with tremulous ardour to Maxwheel at Kelso 
 Bridge or the Laird's Cast at Makerstoun, now runs 
 away without anybody thinking it worth while to take 
 his rod from the rack. The river runs as sweetly as 
 ever through the Haly Weil at Bemersyde, the Burnfoot 
 at Dryburgh, the Bloody Breeks at Mertoun, the Dark 
 Shore at Makerstoun all famous summer casts of yore, 
 but now tenantless till the ' back end,' all the fish that 
 would seek these immemorial resting-places having been 
 gobbled up by the relentless nets. The indescribable 
 thrill of the rise, the tightening line, the struggle, must be 
 postponed till the days shorten and the leaves turn sere. 
 
 Such as we have it, we must not despise autumn 
 angling. The salmon that defers till October his return 
 to his native river is inferior, indeed, in everything but
 
 268 AUTUMN ON THE TWEED 
 
 weight to early running fish. In many small rivers 
 autumn fish are not worth taking ; their silvered mail 
 is turned to rusty brown or blotchy grey ; their outline, 
 once a perfect model for strength and speed, is marred 
 by lengthening snout and swelling paunch. In the 
 Tweed, however, there is always a fair proportion of 
 well-shaped, well-coloured fish at least, till well on 
 in November, and their greater average size makes 
 amends. In March and April clean-run fish most 
 commonly run from eight to ten pounds, and show a 
 poor fight on heavy tackle such as is commonly used 
 in those months, especially when these fish are wearied 
 by a long ascent through strong water. In autumn 
 the case is altered. The fish which quit the sea in 
 September and October were probably only eight or ten 
 pounds in the spring, like their brethren who preceded 
 them ; but three or four months of sea fare have added 
 prodigiously to their proportions, and most of them 
 scale from fifteen to twenty pounds. 
 
 Besides these, there are the veterans which have sur- 
 vived the perils of several seasons, comparatively few 
 in number, but weighing from thirty pounds to fifty 
 pounds each. These sockdolagers are deliberate in 
 migration: they require the whole summer to stuft' 
 their mighty carcases with sea provender sufficient to 
 carry them through the cares of matrimony in the 
 lean winter months, and seldom show in the river till 
 towards the end of the season. Their presence con- 
 tributes immensely to the excitement of autumn fishing, 
 and the sport is enhanced through means of the small
 
 NOVEMBER 269 
 
 flies and delicate tackle it is often necessary to display 
 in water refined by the first frosts. 
 
 Every angler on Tweedside cherishes the secret hope 
 that a flash of good fortune may befall him similar to 
 that which came one November gloaming to a friend 
 of mine. He was fishing the cast called Jock Sure, just 
 above the Monk's Ford, at Dryburgh, when he beheld a 
 mighty form roll dolphin- wise above the glassy surface 
 a few yards below his fly. No splash or flurry just a 
 silent ' head-and-tail ' rise, such as the experienced 
 fisherman loves to see as the light begins to fail. 
 
 My friend was alone, fishing off" the shore ; his tackle 
 was fine and his fly small, for the river was not far 
 above summer size. There was a fair current flowing 
 in Jock Sure, though the surface was smooth. Steadily 
 he plied his lure, working down to the spot where the 
 monster had shown himself, scarcely daring to hope 
 that it would notice the insignificant bundle of fur and 
 feather dancing overhead. 
 
 ' That 's about the place now,' thought he to himself, 
 and at that moment the line stopped the rod was 
 smartly raised and bent in a goodly curve the reel gave 
 a short shriek then, click click click, paid out the 
 line by inches as the great fish moved slowly into 
 deeper water. Nine fish out of ten closely resemble 
 each other in their tactics when hooked. Shoal water 
 or a swift current sometimes adds to the excitement, 
 but in this instance there was neither ; the muckle fish 
 just sailed up and down the deep channel till he was 
 tired, and his captor began to coax him ashore.
 
 270 AUTUMN ON THE TWEED 
 
 The light was far gone now ; the fisher had neither 
 net nor gaff the latter being tabu on the Tweed after 
 the netting season. It was a tedious process to tow 
 such a heavy salmon aground. As often as he felt the 
 gravel, a sweep of broad tail launched him into the 
 deep again, and the work had to be done over again. 
 At last he lay on his broadside, glimmering 'like a 
 great soo' in the twilight. Lucky for my friend that 
 he had a grip like a vice ; it required it all to hold on 
 to the thick 'small' of that tail to draw his quarry 
 ashore, and to carry him up the wooded bank, never 
 more to steer a course beneath the ocean billows or 
 stem the streams of Tweed. Forty-two pounds honest 
 avoirdupois ! Single gut, Limerick steel, and skilful 
 handling had won a memorable victory. 
 
 A single lifetime cannot compass many triumphs 
 such as this ; but there are other episodes over which a 
 man delights to brood when his rod is on the rack and 
 his feet on the fender. Much of the Tweed fishing is a 
 trifle tame ; the size of the stream demands the use of 
 a boat in most places ; and the ' dubs ' those long, deep 
 slow reaches where big autumn fish are most likely to 
 be met necessitate a peculiar style of fishing which 
 is irksome to men accustomed to brisker streams. 
 Nevertheless there is one bit of really wild water on 
 the Tweed that between Old Melrose and Bemersyde 
 which it would be hard to beat on any river. After 
 lingering lovingly under the leafy heights of Gladswood, 
 and creeping slowly through salmon-haunted Cromweil, 
 the river wakes up to the necessity of a rough and rapid
 
 NOVEMBER 271 
 
 descent. Spreading wide, it roars and rushes down 
 along a rocky channel under the beetling Gateheugh 
 for half a mile. A stranger would pass by this reach 
 without suspicion that there was a yard of fishing water 
 in the whole of it. The boatman knows better. Row- 
 ing into mid-stream at the foot of Cromwell, he drops 
 overboard, and, wading up to his armpits, slowly 
 descends down the very centre of the rapids, guiding 
 the boat to which he clings, and directing the angler 
 where to cast into a pot here, an eddy there. 
 
 The descent can only be accomplished in certain 
 states of the water ; but the salmon dearly love these 
 mysterious resting-places in the tumult, and rise very 
 freely. So sure as you hook one, there will be sport. 
 Most likely he will be swept out of the little refuge 
 whence he rose, and go careering down the torrent, 
 while the reel spins merrily. You realise then how 
 much the ' wildness ' of a fish depends on the strength 
 of the stream. In fact, if you hook a log in a Norway 
 river, it will run harder than any salmon, for the log 
 descends unresisting, whereas a salmon hates being 
 carried down, and keeps his head up stream. So 
 if anybody sneers in your hearing at Tweed salmon 
 for their tameness, ask him if he has ever passed down 
 the tossing Gateheugh with a tight line, and landed his 
 twenty-pounder among the rocks under the towering 
 Gled's Nest, where the jackdaws wheel and chatter. 
 
 So much for the bright side of the subject : now for 
 the seamy one. 
 
 The salmon-angling season ends on most Scottish
 
 272 AUTUMN ON THE TWEED 
 
 waters on October 31st. On a few northern streams 
 the close season begins in September; October 15th is 
 the date fixed for the Tay, and in a few of the Solway 
 streams angling is allowed to continue till November 
 15th. On the Tweed alone the season is extended till 
 November 30th, a concession intended to compensate 
 sportsmen for the excessive havoc wrought by improved 
 netting machinery in the tidal and lower reaches, 
 whereby the spring and summer fish, which used to 
 give excellent sport not many years ago, have been all 
 but exterminated. Immense rents are paid by rod- 
 fishers for the best casts on the Tweed, but hardly 
 any one thinks it worth while to cast a fly before the 
 nets are taken off in September. It makes one's heart 
 sore to see a noble river so greedily used, and one longs 
 for the enactment of the recommendation of the Royal 
 Commission, that the weekly close time for nets be 
 extended to forty-eight hours, that no netting be allowed 
 above the tideway, and that rod-fishing shall cease on 
 November 15th. But all this will avail little unless the 
 foul fishing in the upper waters be put an end to. At 
 present, almost every fish that makes its way into the 
 shallow streams about Innerleithen is doomed to die by 
 the gaff, the leister, or the still more nefarious stroke- 
 haul. Ghastly objects they are, poor things, swollen 
 and discoloured, with milt or spawn running from them 
 as they are dragged from the spawning beds. Wasteful 
 and disgusting as the practice is, it will require a strong 
 effort to check it, for poaching has been instilled into 
 the very blood of the ' braw lads o' Gala Water/ and for
 
 NOVEMBER 273 
 
 three centuries it was the policy for the legislature of 
 both Scotland and England to permit the utmost havoc 
 to be wrought on fish swimming in streams with 
 both Scottish and English banks. That is the reason 
 why to this day Tweed and Solway have each their 
 special Acts of Parliament, distinct from the rest of 
 Scotland. 
 
 There will be some grumbling among lessors and 
 lessees of rod-fishing if the close time for rods is ex- 
 tended as proposed, for the nets will still reap the chief 
 benefit. But that must be so always ; and most candid 
 sportsmen will admit that the majority of the fish 
 taken after the middle of November, even as low down 
 as Sprouston and Birgham, are in a condition to be 
 treated with mercy. It is true that Tweed salmon 
 differ from those of most rivers in respect that many 
 of them, even in an advanced gravid state, retain their 
 silvery coats until they are actually on the spawning 
 ' redds ' ; a boat-load of November fish does not present 
 the unsightly appearance which those of any river 
 except the Tweed would do. It is true, also, that the 
 heaviest fish leave the sea latest, and there is a better 
 chance for the angler to immortalise himself by the 
 capture of a forty or fifty pounder in November than 
 in any other month. But sportsmen can afford to be 
 generous; and when they compare the dull, sluggish 
 movements of a November salmon with the gallant 
 resistance offered earlier in the season, when fish are in 
 fighting trim, surely most of them will be content to 
 exercise a chivalrous forbearance.
 
 274 AUTUMN ON THE TWEED 
 
 The Tweed flows with a singularly gentle force 
 among obstacles of which very little displacement 
 would be the cause of formidable cataracts. In all its 
 course from Abbotsford to Wark there is not a barrier 
 which need cause a moment's hesitation to a bold fish 
 ascending the stream. In various places, as at the 
 Gateheugh above mentioned, or at Craigover in the 
 Mertoun water, celebrated by Scrope, the flood is 
 turned at right angles with some roar and chafing, but 
 the general character of the casts is an alternation of 
 sweeping stream and spreading pool. 
 
 But the ' big days ' on the Tweed are generally 
 enacted on what are known as the ' dubs,' long stretches 
 of deep, dead water, such as are known on the Thurso 
 as linns, held back by a cauld or weir. A salmon, 
 though reputed to be meticulous in the matter of flies, 
 has no eye for the picturesque ; so long as he can find 
 shelter, he cares not whether it be under a grey crag, 
 feathered with birch, crowned with oak and rich with 
 associations of Border fray, or in a ' dub ' as dull as a 
 canal, with a turnip field on one side and a highroad 
 on the other. Consequently, as the ' dubs ' afford easy 
 lying and good shelter, the fish are wont to congregate 
 in them in great numbers, and afford a fine prospect as 
 they roll to the top from time to time, flashing their 
 silvery sides, or, plunging heavily, plough up the water 
 like round shot. But to fish a ' dub,' you must have a 
 breeze. Why, it is not easy to explain, for trout, far 
 more wary than any salmon, may be taken in Test or 
 Itchen, in dead calm under blazing sunshine. But on
 
 NOVEMBER 275 
 
 those placid autumn days which sometimes follow each 
 other in long procession the angler's despair though 
 the salmon roll and splash as freely as under a weeping 
 sky, you shall not delude one of them to seize the 
 lure. Not at least till sundown and then, perchance, 
 in the 'fool's half-hour/ you may get a heavy pull 
 at a small White-wing or Silver-grey, and so save a 
 blank. 
 
 But, given a steady wind and a good grey cloud, the 
 lot which sends you to one of the ' dubs ' is not one to be 
 despised. Very likely there lies a hard day's work 
 before you. If you value peace, you will quench any 
 partiality you may entertain for certain flies. Tweed 
 boatmen are terribly autocratic, and it is best to avoid 
 friction by showing ready acquiescence in the dogma 
 which prescribes a Wilkinson because there is frost in 
 her (i.e. the river), or a Ranger because there is a 
 whiteness in her, or a Green well because there is 'a 
 kind o' a blackness ' in her. Put on whatever you are 
 told to use and learn to fling your line right athwart 
 the channel, allowing it to swing slowly round with the 
 current as the boat is paddled slowly up-stream, with 
 the rod low and at right angles to the boat. Dub- 
 fishing is an art of itself; the fish lie deep and rise 
 slow ; do not work the fly in the lively way you have 
 learned is attractive in shallower waters ; to do so is not 
 only to lessen the chances of success, but a waste of 
 strength. Energy, indeed, should be husbanded in 
 dub-fishing, for it may fall to any one's lot to rival the 
 great day of the late Mr. Liddell, sometime vicar of
 
 276 THE OSMANTHUS 
 
 St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, who a few years ago, being 
 then more than threescore and ten, did encounter and 
 overcome eighteen heavy salmon in the compass of a 
 single day on Birghain Dub. The largest of them 
 scaled, if I remember right, thirty-five pounds, and 
 their aggregate weight was somewhere about 350 
 pounds. Such a performance is a test to the endurance 
 of anybody's back and arms. 
 
 So, as you allow your fly to circle slowly round in 
 the rippling water, you may suddenly see the line 
 drawn taut and feel that vigorous snatch, followed by 
 a mighty pulling and a whirring reel, which tells that a 
 good fish has been deceived. You have gone afloat 
 with disdain at heart for a stream that looks more 
 like the haunt of barbel than of salmon, but, perhaps, 
 you may wind up in the dusk repeating after Mr. 
 Andrew Lang : 
 
 ' Unseen, Eurotas, southwards steal ; 
 
 Unknown, Alpheus, westward glide ; 
 You never heard the ringing reel, 
 The music of the waterside.' 
 
 LXII 
 
 Among the few shrubs in full flower at this late 
 The season there is one which is not so often seen 
 
 osmantnus ag j t deserves to be, Osmanthus ilicifolius. 
 It is well named osmantkus flower of fragrance 
 ilicifolius, holly-leaved for its small clustered flowers 
 of pure white smell deliciously, superlatively sweet, and
 
 NOVEMBER 277 
 
 the leaves of young plants and the lower branches of old 
 ones are exceedingly like those of the holly leathery, 
 varnished, spined, and evergreen. It possesses, too, the 
 strange property of the holly in arming with prickles 
 those leaves which are within browsing reach, while 
 those on the upper branches are as smooth as those of 
 a camellia. A native of Japan, it is quite hardy hi our 
 climate, and is a common ornament of gardens in 
 Rome, though you shall not see it in one British 
 shrubbery out of a thousand. It belongs to a family 
 the Oleacece which furnishes us with many favourites 
 the privet, phillyrea, flowering ash, forsythia, and 
 lilac. 
 
 LXIII 
 
 What has become of the old durmast oak, the 
 noblest variety (some botanists make it a The best 
 separate species) of the British oak? It Of0aks - 
 is the native oak of the Lake district, of Wales, and 
 part of Scotland, and is distinguished from the oak of 
 Southern England by having footstalks to the leaves 
 and none to the acorns, whence its specific name 
 sessiliflora ; the southern form (Quercus pedunculata) 
 has footstalks to the flowers and acorns and none to the 
 leaves. Besides these characteristics, the northern oak 
 has a bolder, freer growth, and more beautiful foliage ; 
 the timber is of equal value to that of pedunculata ; 
 and in damp or cold districts it ripens its young wood 
 far more regularly. This makes it a much more 
 valuable tree for the forester than the southern
 
 278 THE BEST OF OAKS 
 
 variety; yet nurserymen have ceased to supply it. 
 Unluckily, two leading authorities on forestry, Messrs 
 Brown and Michie, have written in favour of what they 
 call the English oak that is, Q. pedunculata and 
 their opinion has driven out the other and better tree. 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose that the southern form is 
 exclusively the true English oak. Shakespeare's oaks 
 the ' Warwickshire weed ' is the durmast or northern 
 form, as any one may see by inspecting the old trees in 
 the Forest of Arden, where by the by, blown trees are 
 being replaced by the inferior variety. The greater 
 beauty of the durmast is very apparent at this season, 
 when the foliage has assumed its] autumn gold. This 
 contrast may be well observed in Knole Park, near 
 Sevenoaks, where the oaks scattered through the park 
 are of the southern variety, but there is a double avenue 
 of splendid durmast leading up to the house. The boles 
 and limbs of these trees are clean grown and shapely, 
 unlike the gnarled and fantastic forms assumed by 
 the other variety, the predominance of which in the 
 south I am inclined to attribute partly to the heavier 
 drafts made upon the durmast to supply the wants of 
 the navy at the close of the eighteenth century and 
 beginning of the nineteenth.
 
 December 
 
 LXIV 
 
 THREE hours before sunrise, on a winter morning of late, 
 a veteran marauder came to a bloody end. AHm 
 It was in the very heart of Mr. Crockett's ***&*? 
 ' raiders' land ' the grey Galloway hills. The old 
 fellow was making for his home in the fastnesses of 
 Cairnsmore: there was a price on his head; he had 
 many miles to travel, and he cared not to be out after 
 dawn, lest some officious hill shepherd or keeper should 
 mark his retreat and summon the scattered neighbours 
 to his destruction. The Fleet was in heavy spate, 
 rolling an inky torrent between him and his native 
 mountain. A few seasons ago and he would have 
 plunged into the flood and dried his jacket in the wind 
 as he ran ; but he had been conscious of late of a stiff- 
 ness in the joints and loins which inclined him to short 
 cuts and easy slopes ; a mile or so of detour across the 
 moor would land him at one end of the long and lofty 
 viaduct which carries the Portpatrick Railway over the 
 river. The outlaw had often used it, when not pressed 
 for time, after former nights of misdoing, so off he set
 
 280 A HILL TRAGEDY 
 
 at his brigand trot, and had scarcely set foot on the 
 bridge when a distant roar struck his ear. 
 
 ' Ha,' thought he, ' the boat-express for Stranraer ; 
 most exemplary punctuality. Really,' he muttered, as 
 he picked his footsteps between the rails, ' these railway 
 engineers are most thoughtful, though I doubt if they 
 were thinking much of my convenience when they 
 built this nice bridge. That water would have been 
 most disagreeable this gusty morning.' 
 
 The roar grew louder in the gloom behind him. 
 Looking over his shoulder, Todd, for that was the 
 outlaw's name, saw the lights of the express tearing 
 towards him. In a moment it flashed upon him that 
 he would be overtaken on the single line. It was too 
 late to turn back; had he time to dash forward and 
 gain the other side, fully three hundred yards distant ? 
 He started to run ; age and stiffness were forgotten ; he 
 was as fleet of foot as of yore ; terror added wings to 
 his heels, for life was sweet, oh ! so sweet, among those 
 Galloway hills. 
 
 The end came within fifty yards of safety ; painless, 
 probably, because so violent silent certainly, because 
 none of his race were ever known to utter a sound in 
 the death struggle. A surfaceman passing at sunrise 
 found his body on the line, not sorely mangled, but 
 stiff and cold a fine old hill fox, who thus paid the 
 penalty for a long career of crime.
 
 DECEMBER 281 
 
 LXV 
 
 Within a few miles of the scene of this tragedy an- 
 other mournful episode falls to be chronicled. The ^ of 
 Six-and-forty summers ago, in days when the ^s 16 
 the white-tailed eagles still bred on Cairnsmore, an 
 eaglet was taken from the eyrie, and has since endured 
 life-long captivity, chained by the leg to a granite 
 boulder. A few seasons after its birth, in 1858, the last 
 pair of his race in Galloway were trapped on the far side 
 of the Ayrshire boundary. Since then the captive has 
 scanned the heavens daily with angry, eager eyes, yet 
 never have they been gladdened by the sight of one of 
 his soaring kin ; and now the light in them is quenched 
 for ever. He lives, but he is totally blind. 
 
 An eagle is the very type of freedom, yet I hesitate 
 to affirm that the life of this captive has been an 
 unhappy one. The wants of a wild animal probably 
 are simpler and fewer than we are inclined to reckon 
 them. Food supply, security from attack, and the 
 connubial instinct perhaps comprise all the sources of 
 disquiet. The Cairnsmore eagle has lacked nothing in 
 the first two respects ; in the last, indeed, he has been 
 hardly used, yet there are not wanting cynics who 
 declare that celibacy is a safeguard against many ills. 
 To have his lamb and rabbits regularly served without 
 the trouble of hunting the wastes in the worst of 
 weathers may be a cause of greater gratitude in the 
 bosom of this fine bird than the harshness of his voice 
 and the unsympathetic cast of his countenance permit
 
 282 A VANISHING FOOD PISH 
 
 him to express. Anyhow, he is in fine plumage, and 
 continues to take his meals regularly, whereas the loss 
 of eyesight would have condemned him, had he sur- 
 vived to his present age in a state of liberty, to a 
 lingering death by starvation. 
 
 1 Twice the life of a horse, once the life of a man ; 
 Twice the life of a man, once the life of a stag ; 
 Twice the life of a stag, once the life of an eagle.' 
 
 So runs the old Highland saw, though I forget whether 
 the stag or the eagle is credited with the longer exist- 
 ence. Anyhow, no insurance company ought to accept 
 risks according to this table ; for the Cairnsmore eagle 
 offers, perhaps, the only datum for fixing ' expectation 
 of life' in his kind, and, at what a man reckons but 
 middle age, this bird is only kept alive by the daily 
 ministration of his attendant. 
 
 P.S. Since this note was written, the Cairnsmore 
 eagle last of an immemorial race has passed away, 
 in May 1900, at the ripe age of eight-and-forty. 
 
 LXVI 
 
 The salmon-fishing seasons of 1898 and 1899 must be 
 
 reckoned of culminating leanness among a 
 A vanish- 
 ing Food number of lean years. In fact, our goose 
 
 of the golden eggs seems to be approaching its 
 last gasp. Except in a few rivers like the Usk, the Aber-
 
 DECEMBER 283 
 
 deenshire Dee, and some of the smaller streams in the far 
 north, where proprietors have realised the superior har- 
 vest to be reaped by preserving their waters for angling, 
 instead of letting them, at competitive rents, to netters, 
 the combined greed and ingenuity of man is on the point 
 of overcoming the extraordinary fecundity of the finest 
 of our food fishes, the noblest of our sporting ones. 
 Would we avert the fate impending on our salmon 
 fisheries, there is no course open to us but to follow the 
 recommendations of the Royal Commission on Tweed 
 and Solway. These two estuaries, naturally more pro- 
 ductive of salmon than almost any others, have fared 
 worse than any, owing to causes connected with a 
 historical source. In the long centuries of Border 
 warfare, each country encouraged its people to inflict 
 the utmost damage on the fishings of the other. The 
 Scots had no inclination to preserve salmon in the 
 upper waters of the Tweed and Esk for the advantage 
 of English nets at Berwick and Netherby. Hence, not 
 only have the rivers of these districts remained to this 
 day, as above mentioned, under statutes distinct from 
 those affecting the rest of the two kingdoms, but the 
 inhabitants, especially on the eastern watershed, have 
 inherited an incorrigible aptitude for illegal fishing. 
 The statutory close time for nets in the Tweed begins 
 three weeks later than on nearly all the other rivers ; 
 no sooner are the legal nets off than the estuary is 
 harried by poachers plying the deadly hang-net, and 
 the autumn run of spawning fish is intercepted on its 
 way to the upper waters. Those that do escape find
 
 284 MISTLETOE UPON THE OAK 
 
 small mercy when they reach the best spawning grounds, 
 where the leister, the gaff, and the ' snatching ' hook are 
 plied almost with impunity. When the pollution poured 
 from scores of woollen mills is taken into account also, 
 and that no effort is made to replenish the waters by 
 artificial hatching, the wonder is, not that salmon are 
 more scarce than of old, but that all these adverse con- 
 ditions have not prevailed to exterminate the breed alto- 
 gether. In the Teviot, the most important tributary of 
 the Tweed, and, in the golden age of Scrope, a famous 
 salmon river, a very near approach to extermination 
 seems to have been attained, seeing that the whole 
 result of the past angling season consisted of one 
 salmon and one grilse ! The Royal Commission re- 
 ported nearly two years ago, and no action has been 
 taken by the legislature; but indeed the question 
 remains, What is the use of making new laws if the 
 existing ones are allowed to be set at nought ? 
 
 LXVII 
 
 Elsewhere I have ventured to express doubts about 
 
 Mistletoe the existence in Britain of mistletoe at the 
 
 upon tli6 
 
 oak present day upon the oak. These doubts 
 
 arose from repeated failure to obtain specific evidence 
 of a single instance. Moreover, I have searched through 
 thousands of oak trees in such districts as Surrey and 
 the Loire valley, where oaks abound, and where mistletoe 
 grows abundantly upon poplars, apples, limes, robinia, 
 and hawthorn, and have never been lucky enough to
 
 DECEMBER 285 
 
 light upon an example. Now, however (1900), my 
 scepticism is dispelled. Oaks bearing living mistletoe 
 are growing at Stoulton in Worcestershire, and Eastnor 
 Park in Herefordshire. Other instances are reported 
 from Sherwood Forest, Richmond Park, and Windsor 
 Forest, but I have not been able to ascertain whether 
 these remain at the present day. 
 
 LXVIII 
 
 Mine if it be not straining the possessive pronoun 
 to apply it to a collection of which I am a M Book 
 joint owner with thirty and odd millions of shelves, 
 other taxpayers ; mine although the title to use and 
 consult these books may be reckoned precarious, 
 depending on the popularis aura which has wafted 
 my name hitherto to the top of the poll in successive 
 elections. For, although the owners be legion, the 
 warning ' For Members only ' renders the readers in 
 our library at the House of Commons a company 
 numerically select, if somewhat transitory. 
 
 There is, however, little of an ephemeral character in 
 some fifty thousand volumes which people its walls. 
 It is perhaps unique among libraries which profess to 
 be general, in the proportion which fiction bears to 
 other subjects. Gentle Sidney's turgid sentimentality 
 may be studied in his Arcadia; among Goldsmith's 
 graver works, The Vicar of Wakefield offers an ever- 
 verdant oasis ; but I have not yet discovered any later 
 prose romance ; there is no Fielding, no Scott ; we do
 
 286 MY BOOKSHELVES 
 
 not recognise Dickens or Thackeray ; and as to living 
 novelists, we seem to share the opinion of 
 
 ' . . . The young person of Delhi 
 Who couldn't read Crockett's " Cleg Kelly " ; 
 
 When they said "It's the fashion," 
 
 He exclaimed in a passion 
 " I know ! but so's Marie Corelli."' 
 
 Nevertheless, there is some refreshment in these 
 shelves for those who have learned where to look for 
 it. There are a few bindings which it is good to 
 handle ; the dark-blue calf containing the MS. Journals 
 of Cromwell's Parliament, with its significant erasures 
 and mutilations ; or Derome's crimson morocco, of 
 which a century and a half has not quenched the 
 superb glow; others, not of aesthetic merit, but pos- 
 sessing a pathetic interest, and telling by their bruised 
 and water-stained sides of that autumn morning sixty- 
 six years ago, when the Houses of Parliament were 
 consumed by fire, and, of the books in the library, only 
 a few were thrown out of window on the terrace and 
 saved. The present collection has been got together 
 since then. In 1835 the Standing Committee reported 
 the almost total destruction of the former collection; 
 twenty years later 20,000 volumes had been purchased, 
 and in the following year this number had increased to 
 30,000. No clear principle, save the rigid exclusion of 
 works of fiction, seems to have guided the Committee 
 in their choice of books: one is a little disposed to 
 grudge 236 which they spent on Cuvier's works, out
 
 DECEMBER 287 
 
 of one of the very few legacies they have ever had to 
 dispose of in the purchase of books. 
 
 The general furniture of these shelves has some 
 analogy in geology a vast and uniform sedimentary 
 formation, represented by the steady accretion of 
 Parliamentary papers and debates, with erratic blocks 
 of nobler material and unexpected ' pockets ' of precious 
 metal. The choicest ' claims ' are situated in the room 
 third and last to the east of the Oriel room which gives 
 entrance to the suite. This is pretty rich in poetry and 
 classics, remarkably so in county histories and topo- 
 graphy. There is not much temptation to loiter in the 
 first two rooms, unless your taste lies in heraldry, of 
 which noble science there is a choice little collection of 
 authorities in the corner nearest the fireplace of the 
 second room. Even should the jargon of blazon be an 
 unknown tongue to you, it is worth pulling out a fine 
 morocco-bound folio of Milles's Catalogue of Honor, to 
 note the tiny, girlish hand in which Thomas Gray, the 
 poet, besprinkled it with marginalia. Among the 
 works of reference, also, are included at least two of 
 scantly senatorial character namely, a fine copy of 
 Grose's Blackguardiana (1785), and the Glossarium 
 eroticum Lingiwe Latince (Paris, 1824). Who was the 
 wag on the Standing Committee who directed the 
 purchase of these for the edification of members ? 
 
 For the rest, the contents of the shelves in rooms 
 A and B, though furnishing with their serried backs 
 the very best kind of mural decoration, are only 
 digestible by very earnest politicians. Yonder is one
 
 288 MY BOOKSHELVES 
 
 of that kind, you see, ransacking back numbers of 
 Hansard, intent upon feathering with a plume from the 
 adversaries' wing the shaft he is about to aim at his 
 front ; in other words, to cripple him with a quotation 
 from one of his own speeches. Considering how ugly 
 are the wounds inflicted in this manner, it is astonish- 
 ing how seldom they prove fatal. 
 
 Passing through the last pair of swing doors, you 
 stand in Room C, the only one of these five great 
 apartments which offers promise of reposeful reading. 
 True, dozens of pens are squeaking, for here, as in the 
 other rooms, long writing tables are filled with busy 
 scribblers; but there are spacious corners with easy 
 chairs worthy of their name. In a curtained recess at 
 the end stands the marble effigy of the late Sir Thomas 
 Erskine May, highest of all authorities on Parliamentary 
 procedure, most fitly enshrined as the genius of that 
 assembly to which he devoted his whole life. His 
 grave eye seems to rest on the bookcase opposite; 
 follow its direction and you will find, not works in Sir 
 Thomas's peculiar province, but a fairly varied collec- 
 tion of French literature. Not novels, of course, but 
 much that stirs the imagination as powerfully as any 
 novel. Take the first that comes to hand Mirabeau's 
 Lettres ecrites du donjon de Vincennes. Of all the 
 sorrowful documents that were ever penned, this series 
 is perhaps the most humbling. Sophie de Monnier, it 
 may be remembered, was the wife of one whose 
 hospitality Mirabeau repaid by seducing her. They 
 fled to Switzerland, but Mirabeau was handed over to
 
 DECEMBER 289 
 
 the French authorities, condemned to death for rapt et 
 vol, which sentence was commuted to one of imprison- 
 ment at Vincennes. Having suborned the secretary of 
 the governor, he was enabled to carry on a correspon- 
 dence with Sophie for more than three years. The 
 tender regrets, the unreserve, the undying constancy 
 they breathe redeemed from mawkishness by the 
 powerful intellect which gave them birth the feverish 
 impatience for liberty, only with the object of rejoining 
 Sophie render these letters most fascinating, could 
 one but forget the shameful end. When he obtained 
 his release, Mirabeau found that the real Sophie was 
 not the ideal he had cherished during his long con- 
 finement. He deserted her and her child, and after 
 some miserable vicissitudes, she perished by her own 
 hand. 
 
 Replace the book and see if there be nothing near 
 at hand that will leave a sweeter impression of human 
 nature? Sure, here is Michel de Montaigne, and no 
 one is to be pitied who has his company for an hour 
 or two. Luckily, this copy of the famous essays is a 
 good folio of the seventeenth century. To render them 
 in anything but the old typography is all but as cruel 
 as Lamb considered Lord Braybrooke's edition of 
 Burton's Anatomy. Threadbare though he be from 
 over-quotation, he is inexhaustible in quaint reflection, 
 gentle scepticism, kindly advice, irrelevant anecdote, 
 illogical conclusion. Above all, how delicate and vivid 
 are the glimpses which he allows into French society 
 at a time when the revival of learning was beginning 
 T
 
 290 MY BOOKSHELVES 
 
 to convince people that there was more to be got out 
 of life than by the hollow unreality of chivalry and the 
 clumsy machinery of feudalism. How he loved to 
 escape from the din and display, from the mummery 
 and massacre, to the little library he has depicted so 
 minutely in the third story of his tower, of which the 
 basement contained a chapel and the second floor his 
 bedroom. One can enjoy the very view from his window 
 in Perigord. 
 
 ' le suis sur 1'entree, et vois sous moy mon iardin, ma basse- 
 cour, ma cour, et dans la plupart des membres de ma maison. 
 . . . La ie feuillette a cette heure vn liure, a cette heure un 
 autre, sans ordre et sans dessein, k pieces descousues. Tan- 
 tost ie resue, tantost i'enregistre et dicte, en me promenant, 
 mes songes que voycy.' 
 
 For five centuries these ' songes ' have been the source 
 of perennial delight to successive generations. Scores 
 of later essayists and diarists have amused and in- 
 terested us; Samuel Pepys may be more minutely 
 frank ; Rousseau more conscientious ; Addison more 
 elevating; Lamb more jocund; but not one of the 
 whole tribe has ever excelled or, as I think, equalled 
 Montaigne in the charm created by delicately handling 
 grave matters with levity, and trivial things with 
 gravity. In the most agonizing spasms of a deadly 
 disease, he had still the spirit to discuss affairs most 
 remote from his own circumstances : 
 
 ' Quand on me tient le plus atterre, et que les assistants 
 m'espargnent, i'essaye souvent mes forces, et leur entame
 
 DECEMBER 291 
 
 moy mesme des propos les plus eloignez de mon estat. . . . 
 Estant cheu tout a coup d'une tresdoulce condition de vie 
 et tresheureuse, a la plus douloureuse et penible qui se 
 puisse imaginer . . . ie maintiens toutes fois, iusques a 
 cette heure, mon esprit en telle assiette, que pourveu que 
 i'y puisse apporter de la Constance, ie me trouve en assez 
 meilleure condition de vie que mille avltres, qui n'ont ny 
 fiebvre ny mal que celuy qu'ils se donnent eulx mesmes par 
 la faute de leurs discours. 
 
 This is the kind of sweet philosopher for a prisoner 
 of the Whips to take with him to one of those IOAV 
 green-backed chairs of a summer afternoon. The sun 
 is off the river front; air flows in through the open 
 windows; soothing sounds come off the water; the 
 frou-frou of many visitors ; the tinkle of tea-cups and 
 the murmur of many voices are heard on the terrace. 
 Scenes of old France flit before you as you turn the 
 pages the France of the last of the Valois, of the 
 religious wars, of Catherine's escadron volant. The 
 better to realise the misty groups, perhaps you close 
 your eyes; presently you are in the presence of the 
 smiling sage himself, clad in his accustomed black 
 velvet and lace, for he has explained how he never 
 could be bothered by conforming to the polychrome 
 motley of his countrymen (Francois accoustumez a nous 
 bigarrer). You are just about to ask him how it was 
 possible for him and Ronsard and Jodelle, and the rest 
 of a select little literary society, to keep their spirits 
 serene amid the constant purposeless slaughter and 
 unlovely debauchery of the times, when Trrrr, trrrr, 
 trrrr a detestable bell awakens you with a start : you
 
 292 MY BOOKSHELVES 
 
 rush off to take part in a division, voting ay or no, 
 you care not which, on some question, you know not 
 what perhaps a reduction moved on the salary of 
 the President of the Local Government Board because 
 the Parish Council of Muddlepuddleton have removed 
 their medical inspector from office. 
 
 THE END
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 KABBIT-PBOOF PLANTS 
 
 * An asterisk indicates those species which require protection during 
 the first season or two after planting. 
 
 Azalea . . "i 
 Rhododendron . J 
 Honeysuckle 
 Fly Honeysuckle 
 Box . 
 Butcher's broom 
 
 *Spanish broom . 
 
 ^Mexican orange . 
 Cotoneaster 
 Hardy fuchsia . 
 Tree pseonies 
 Lilac (all species) 
 Syringa (all species) . 
 Snow berry 
 Spurge laurel 
 Mezereon . . 
 St. John's wort (all 
 
 species) . 
 Spindlewood 
 Guelder rose 
 Wayfaring tree . 
 
 *Laurustinus 
 Hawthorn (all species) 
 
 SHRUBS. 
 all species and varieties. 
 
 both the native species. 
 
 Lonicera xylosteum, and others. 
 
 Buxus sempervirens. 
 
 Ruscus aculeatus. 
 
 Spartium junceum, 
 
 Choysia ternata. 
 
 all species. 
 
 Fuchsia Riccartoni and globosa. 
 
 Syringa Persica, etc. 
 
 Philadelphus coronarius. 
 
 Symphoricarpus racemosus. 
 
 Daphne laureola. 
 
 Daphne mezereum. 
 
 Hypericum calycinum, arietinum, 
 
 patulum, etc. 
 
 Euonymus europceus and latifolius. 
 Viburnum opulus. 
 Viburnum lantana. 
 Viburnum tinus. 
 Cratcegus oxyacantha, etc.
 
 294 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Dogwood . 
 
 Sea buckthorn 
 
 Eoses 
 
 Spiraea 
 
 Deutzia 
 
 Ribes 
 * Arbutus 
 *Berberis . 
 *Escallonia . 
 *Partridge berry 
 
 Cassinia 
 
 Hippopkae rhamnoides. 
 all species. 
 
 Deutzia scabra, etc. 
 
 all species. 
 
 all species. 
 
 all species. 
 
 Escallonia macrantha and rubra. 
 
 Gaultheria Shallow, . 
 
 Cassinia (Diplopappus) fulvida. 
 
 Snowdrops 
 Snowflakes. 
 Daffodils . . . 
 Star of Bethlehem 
 Tulips 
 
 Dog's-tooth violet 
 Solomon's seal . 
 Asphodel . 
 Lilies (some species) . 
 Torch lilies 
 Lily of the valley 
 * Day lilies . . . 
 Saffron 
 
 Squills (most species) 
 Primrose (some spe- 
 cies) 
 
 Flags. . . } 
 
 Windflowers 
 Crowfoot and butter- 
 cup 
 
 HERBS. 
 
 Galanthus rivalis and varieties. 
 
 Leucojum vernum, etc. 
 
 all species. 
 
 Ornithogalum umbellatum, nutans, etc. 
 
 all species and varieties. 
 
 Erythronium dens-canis. 
 
 Polygonatum multiftorum. 
 
 Asphodelus ramosus, etc. 
 
 Lilium umbellatum, dalmaticum, etc. 
 
 Tritoma uvaria, etc. 
 
 Convallaria majalis. 
 
 Hemerocallis fulva, etc. 
 
 Colchicum autumnale, and others. 
 
 Scilla campanulata, verna, etc. 
 
 Primula veris, Japonica, but none of 
 
 the Auricula section. 
 Iris pseudacorus, fcetidissima and all 
 
 the ' flag ' section. 
 Anemone (probably all species). 
 Ranunculus (many species, but not 
 the pretty white K. amplexicaulis) .
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 295 
 
 Globe flower 
 Spiraea 
 
 London pride 
 
 *Lungwort . 
 Periwinkle 
 Moukshood 
 "Winter aconite . 
 
 Harebell . 
 
 New Zealand flax 
 *Bamboos . 
 
 Arundo 
 
 Zebra grass 
 
 Knotweed . 
 
 Violet 
 
 Foxgloves (biennial) 
 
 Geranium . 
 
 Mullein 
 Orchids 
 
 Trollius europceus, etc. 
 
 all species. 
 
 Saxifraga umbrosa, and several other 
 
 saxifrages, but not the Crassifolia 
 
 section. 
 
 Pulmonaria mollis, etc. 
 Vinca major and minor, 
 Aconitum Napellus. 
 Eranthis hyemalis. 
 Campanula (many species, especially 
 
 the giant harebell, C, grandis). 
 Phormium tenax. 
 probably all species of Bambusa, 
 
 Arundinaria, and Phyllostachys. 
 Gynerium argenteum. 
 A. donax and conspicua. 
 Eulalia zebrina. 
 
 Polygonum cuspidatum, Sieboldii, etc. 
 Viola odorata. 
 
 Digitalis purpurea and varieties. 
 Geranium pratense, Armeniacum, and 
 
 many others. 
 
 Ferbascum thapsus and others, 
 all hardy terrestrial species. 
 
 N.B. Most of the composite family (including asters, 
 Michaelmas daisies, etc., are safe), but none of the 
 equally numerous crucifers.
 
 Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty 
 at the Edinburgh University Press
 
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