THE WHITADDER — THE FASNEY. 161 



the Fasney are of tlie regular heather-burn species. 

 The stream is a hill-burn magnified, and its inhabitants 

 are black, large-headed, powerful of jaw, and poor of 

 flesh. They are not, on the whole, so small as the 

 trout usually are in such waters; for although a poun- 

 der is rare, there are many of half-a-pound, and the run 

 is not much under a quarter. But the impression pro- 

 duced by a Fasney trout of half-a-pound is painfully 

 suggestive of age and ravenousness. The head is much 

 too big in proportion to the body, the teeth are long 

 and sharp ; and you might fancy that just as constant 

 exertion develops the muscles of the blacksmith's arm, 

 constant indulgence of voracity had exaggerated the 

 masticating members of these fish. But the truth is, 

 that the trout's head seems to continue to grow when 

 the food is too scarce to carry forward the shoulders at 

 an equal rate, and it is by its dentation and the length 

 of its maxillary bones that the patriarch of a pool may 

 often be detected, rather than by its weight. A two-year- 

 old trout of the Blackadder is probably heavier than a 

 ten-year-old trout of the Fasney — but lay their heads 

 together, and see the verification of the adage about 

 old crania and young shoulders ! As might be inferred 

 from our description, the Fasney is a late stream, the 

 spring being far advanced before the trout in it will take 

 fly or are worth catching. But in summer it is a certain 

 producer; and we have fished it with worm on the worst 

 of all sorts of days for worm-fishing, when a driving 

 mist filled the lonely glen, and the whirr of the grouse 

 getting up from amongst the heather was like the noise 

 of thunder, and yet found our creel as full as we cared 

 to carry home by the evening. Longformacus Inn, on 



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