TROUT IN ISOLATED LOCHS 161 



Speaking on this subject, he indicated a burn well- 

 known to me for the size and abundance of its 

 trout. It is formed by two small streams which 

 issue from a great corrie on the mountain side, 

 wanders slowly through a nearly flat piece of land 

 below the corrie, and falls fifty feet perpendicular 

 into a large loch. The isolation of the burn is 

 as complete as that of any hill loch. To-day the 

 whole area in which it runs is included in a deer 

 forest ; but less than thirty years ago the Jiill 

 was sheep ground and the flat was a croft, the 

 house of which still stands in a ruinous condition. 

 " The crofter who lived there," my gamekeeping 

 friend went on, " had several boys who went to 



school at (a village three miles away). They 



carried their dinner with them in tin pails, and 

 one of them got into the way of catching trout 

 and carrying them with him in his pail to put 

 into the burn at home. The trout in the burn 

 are all the descendants of those he put in." And 

 as the burn is slow and deep, and the flat land of 

 the old croft is now an insect -haunted swamp, 

 the trout are large beyond the generality of hill- 

 burn fish. Here, then, are two examples of arti- 

 ficial stocking in one district quite unconnected 

 with the modern pisciculture, and it would be a 

 little absurd to suppose that they stand alone. 

 Trout in past times formed an important and easily- 

 procured part of the Highlander's food supplies, 

 and it is not extravagant to suppose that the old 

 Celt was capable of taking the very obvious steps 

 necessary to transform sterile into productive 

 waters. 



IT 



