100 THE BOEDER ANGLER. 



especially in the neighbourhood of manufacturing 

 towns ; but we are glad to learn that it is much on 

 the decrease. For the last twelve or fifteen years there 

 has been a penalty provided for such kinds of fishing, 

 by Lord Minto's Act ; and although every village has 

 probably still its pout-net or two — one kind of which 

 has a long pole for capturing trouts when driven to 

 the side in heavy floods, the other having two stilts, 

 and being thrust below banks chiefly in burns — they 

 are not very deadly, and are generally used as much for 

 sport as for profit. There are many anglers who could 

 with the rod beat either of these kinds of net; and it is 

 to the more destructive " harry-water-nets,'' made of 

 such fine cord that they may be carried in the pocket, 

 and which sweep down and almost clear out the whole 

 stream, that the decrease of trouts, wherever they do 

 decrease, is to be attributed. Such places as Hawick 

 and Galashiels are. the head-quarters of the poachers 

 who use nets of this kind, and they generally practise 

 their illegal work at night sheerly for the sake of 

 gain. There is a strong indisposition on the part of 

 the people of Scotland to inform against poachers of 

 any kind, and landowners do not place such value 

 upon trouting as to take measiu-es for detecting them, 

 so that the law has never been so well enforced as it 

 ought to be. Perhaps the only plan of stopping this 

 kind of poaching is for anglers to form themselves into 

 societies for the protection of the rivers in the districts 

 where it is practised ; and, by employing the more 

 notorious poachers as watchers, on the old principle of 

 detection, it might soon be got under control. To 

 their credit, the Scotch landowners have never availed 



