180 THE BORDER ANGLER. 



few grilse visit it either. Hosts of bull-trouts, how- 

 ever, swarm into it in the spawning- time, and a 

 favourable flood spreads them throughout its waters, 

 almost to its source. A pretty high cauld about a mile 

 from its mouth prevents their getting up if the flood is 

 only a low one, and thus in the dam at Cantie's Bridge 

 many hundreds of them are kept throughout the win- 

 ter. In the old kelt-killing days, when the occupier 

 of the public-house at the bridge leased the fishing in 

 this pool, murderous slaughter used to be committed 

 in it every spring ; but of late years it has been pre- 

 served, and the abortive experiments to ascertain the 

 rate of the kelt's growth have been made here. 



