Rod-Fishing in the Nith. 23 



16th December , 1898, 



Mr James Barbour, Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Donatiotis and Exchanges. — Proceedings of Natural Science 

 Association of Staten Island ; Was Middle America peopled from 

 Asia ? By Prof. Edward Morse. 



Communications. 

 1. Rod-Fishing in the Nith. By Rev. 11. G. J. Veitch of Eliock. 



One man's hobby is often another man's aversion. My 

 hobby would therefore never have been trotted out before you 

 unless I had been asked to show his paces. 



Well, it is an ancient art, and some of you who have studied 

 Egyptian antiquities may have missed the records of the manner 

 of fishing for crocodiles in the Nile in the days of Herodotus. 



It was as follows : — They took a nice little pig and " put him 

 round a hook." Then they took with them a small live pig, 

 and beat him and pulled his tail to make him squeak. Then 

 when the crocodile, attracted by his cries, approached the bank, 

 they cast in the little dead pig that was " round the hook." 

 The crocodile, having swallowed the bait, was played as we 

 now play a salmon, and either lost or brought to the basket, as 

 the case might be. 



But this was rough fishing. Rod-fishing now-a-days has be- 

 come a science and an art. To be an expert there must have been 

 long study of entomology. The various flies and their seasons, 

 the different kinds of worms (would that someone would find me a 

 breed that would squeak to attract the trout !), the innumerable 

 creeping, crawling, and swimming creatures which inhabit the 

 water, and on which trout and salmon feed, open up a field for 

 life-long scientific enquiry. 



But rod-fishing is also an art. There is no other which so 

 enthrals its devotees. An old friend of mine puts this most 

 pointedly. 



" It is a grand sport, a noble sport ; it is the only sport of 

 which it can be said that the man who can wander about the 

 riverside in thunder, lightning, hail, rain, wind, and snow, or sit 

 all day without bit or sup on a wet sod, in a cramp-inviting 



