156 THE BORDER ANGLER. 



swallowed it, ran off in extraordinary style, and finally, 

 finding no other way of escape, bolted the whole nine 

 inches of brass wire, and bit through the line. Much 

 amazed, Mr. Stoddart threw in six set-lines, each with 

 a trout and wire-armed hook at the end, and went on 

 his way trouting. When he returned, and proceeded to 

 draw his lines, he found the first five docked of their 

 bait and hook, the whole having been swallowed and 

 the cords bit through by some monster, as had hap- 

 pened to his trolling-line ; but at the end of the sixth, 

 dead and motionless, was a huge eel with the whole of 

 the lost gorge-hooks, brass-wire and all, in its maw, 

 having been choked in its attempt to swallow the 

 seventh ! Mr. Stoddart most unluckily did not weigh 

 his prize, but estimated it at 20 lbs. We have searched 

 for, but have been unable to find, this singular cir- 

 cumstance recorded in the last edition of The Angler^s 

 Companion; we are certain, however, that it was in the 

 first. In the last edition of that book — which is really 

 the most complete and interesting, as it is about the best- 

 written, of angling- works — we find set forth, however, 

 a very remarkable mode of grilse-fishing in Heaton- 

 mill cauld, in which, with a worm and float, in the 

 mode of school-boys bobbing for perch, on a bright 

 day, with the water low, clear, and calm, Mr. Stoddart 

 killed a "noble grilse" out of a shoal of about a dozen 

 which were visible sailing about in the pool. 



In April and May the Teviot swarms with smolts, 

 both of the salar and of the eriox, so that the angler 

 must be careful. He cannot possibly avoid hooking 

 one occasionally ; and if he finds, when he has hooked 

 one, that a sharp twitch will not suffice to disengage 



