130 ODD HOURS WITH NATURE 



cated of their kind. During the last week of June 

 I fished two Ross -shire lochs one lying high, and 

 probably untouched by gut twice in twelve months ; 

 the other larger, and at a much lower level of 

 the same district, but regularly fished throughout 

 the season. On the first a cast was used of three 

 flies of medium size a grouse and claret, a teal 

 and red, and a blue Zulu, very popular as a 

 dropper in recent years in the North. For an 

 hour, though wind and sky were just right and 

 the water ideal in character and depth, nothing 

 came of this tempting offer. The loch might 

 have been uninhabited. Then, overcoming a 

 reluctance, partly theoretical and partly indolent, 

 I took off the Zulu and put on a teal and green 

 a pretty thing to look at, but in this part of the 

 country a fly with no sort of reputation at all. 

 But straightway the fish began to rise, and within 

 an hour and a half the basket contained thirteen 

 trout, " sizable," but not large. Every one of 

 the thirteen was taken on the teal and green, 

 and at least as many rises, unfollowed by capture, 

 were to the same fly. 



Feeling that I had struck, by a happy chance, 

 upon the secret of success, I hastened to the lower 

 loch, in which the run of fish is larger. But here, 

 strange to say, in the same weather and the same 

 water (the burn from the upper loch discharges 

 into the lower), the teal and green was of no use 

 whatever. It did not even excite an idle curiosity. 

 But, on the other hand, the teal and red found 

 itself in a first-class market. Eight fish, running 

 from half a pound to a pound and half, were all 



