A GENERAL SURVEY. - 19 



and all round the coast, from the merry but much pre- 

 served Bush, within easy hail of Giant's Causeway, to the 

 early Lee, in county Cork, the salmon come and go with 

 beautiful regularity. One of the most delightful angling 

 tours I ever had was in Ireland, fishing my journey from 

 Sligo through Connemara to Galway by easy stages, and 

 taking whatever came in my way — perch, pike, brown trout, 

 white trout, and salmon — with praiseworthy impartiality. 

 Rivers, mountains, land and sea, the courteous people, 

 even the pigs and wretched hovels — everything, in short, 

 but the too freely weeping skies, contributed to the sum 

 total of a pleasant holiday. 



The angling in Ireland, though very good, is not what it 

 was when the chapters of ' Wild Sports of the West ' were 

 written. The fish are, generally speaking, of the same 

 class as those to be found in the Scotch rivers — salmon 

 and trout everywhere, and in the larger lakes leviathan 

 pike, and here and there bream. There are gillaroo in 

 Lough Erne, and pollan in Lough Neagh. It goes without 

 saying in these days, when the taste for angling has ex- 

 tended so much, that the free fishings are not numerous. 



Still there are many bits of open salmon fishing, and lakes 

 that are to all intents and purposes free ; and the sea and 

 brown trout fishing is plentiful enough to satisfy the most 

 rapacious appetite. Boats are cheap and the boatmen very 

 modest in their demands, and what is more, the latter are 

 always satisfied with the treatment they receive, while their 

 humorous sayings and doings are a source of continual 

 amusement. One salmon fishing licence will do for the 

 whole of Ireland, which is a great advantage. Tlie open 

 season, as elsewhere, is from February 2nd to October 31st, 

 with the usual exceptions of special districts. The prin- 

 cipal rivers in the south are the Blackwater, the Lee, and 



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