TKOUT-NETTING. 103 



especially in the neighbourhood of manufacturing 

 towns ; but we are glad to learn that it is much on 

 the decrease. For the last twelve or fifteen years 

 there has been a penalty provided for such kinds of 

 fishing, by Lord Minto's Act; and although every 

 village has probably still its pout-net or two one 

 kind of which has a long pole for capturing trouts 

 when driven to the side in heavy floods, the other 

 having two stilts, and being thrust below banks chiefly 

 in burns they are not very deadly, and are generally 

 used as much for sport as for profit. There are many 

 anglers who could with the rod beat either of these 

 kinds of net, except in burns and small waters, the 

 banks of which are peculiarly adapted for the latter ; 

 and it is to the more destructive " harry- water-nets/' 

 made of such fine cord that they may be carried in the 

 pocket, and which sweep down and almost clear out 

 the whole stream, that the decrease of trouts, wherever 

 they do decrease, is to be attributed. Such places 

 as Hawick and Galashiels are the head- quarters of 

 the poachers who use nets of this kind, and they 

 generally practise their illegal work at night, sheerly 

 for the sake of gain. There is a strong indisposition 

 on the part of the people of Scotland to inform against 

 poachers of any kind, and landowners do not place 

 such value upon trouting as to take measures for de- 

 tecting these villanous marauders, so that the law has 

 never been so well enforced as it ought to be. Perhaps 

 the only way of stopping this kind of poaching is for 

 anglers to form themselves into societies for the pro- 

 tection of the rivers in the districts where it is prac- 

 tised ; and, by employing the more notorious poachers 



