FISHING IN RIVER, STREAM, AND LOCH 175 



shot the moors, towards the beginning of Sep- 

 tember, somewhat hard ; or the weather has been 

 wet and windy, and the birds are packing and shy. 

 By way of variety, you may go otter-fishing in some 

 of the mountain lakelets, and a dish of fish of any 

 kind will be by no means unwelcome. A poaching 

 piece of mechanism that otter is : yet if it were more 

 freely used it would be all the better ; for the small 

 trout multiply marvellously, though it is hard to tell 

 how they feed and fatten ; and if they must sometimes 

 suffer from hunger, they enjoy absolute immunity from 

 pike. The tarn lies high among mists and clouds, and 

 far above the level of the sweet hill-pastures, among the 

 stone-strewn slopes of the straggling brown heather. 

 Insects of any kind are scarce ; you seldom hear the 

 hum of the bee, and never see the flutter of the butter- 

 fly. As you adjust the otter and unroll the lines, you 

 hear nothing but the twitter of some moorland bird, 

 the crow of the grouse-cock, or the croak of the raven. 

 You set your board afloat before the breeze, among the 

 cold shadows cast by the clouds on the dark-brown 

 ripple of the wavelets. But as the long trail of flies 

 drags slowly out, the whole finny population awakens 

 to the sense of the unwonted excitement. The phe- 

 nomenon of a flight of flies, all of them most inviting, 

 stirs it up by shoals in jealous rivalry. There is a line 

 of popples and bursting bubbles on the broken water ; 

 tiny heads come to the surface, and seem to knock 

 together ; there are conglomerations and disturbances 

 here and there. When you haul in, which you may do 



