134 FIELD NOTES FOR THE YEAR, 



bright centre in the heavens : this continued for fome time, 

 until at length assuming its usual form, it remained com- 

 paratively stationary above the north-eastern horizon, and 

 from that quarter there came the next day a severe storm of 

 sleet and wind. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



JUNE. 



Trout Fishing Sea Trout in tl;e Findhoni Breeding-place of Black-headed 

 Gulls Salmon Fishing Grey Crows Hair Worms Fishing Cromaity 

 Goats -The Peregrine Falcon. 



IN June the trout begin to feed more freely, and from most 

 Highland streams the sportsman may reckon on a good 

 basketful if the day is tolerable. There is a kind of trout in 

 the Findhoni which frequent only the lower pools near the 

 sea; higher up I never saw them; the -fishermen call them 

 " brown lugs." In appearance they are between a sea and a 

 river trout : they seldom exceed a pound and a half in 

 weight. 



One day about the 1st of June, when fishing in a clear 

 pool near the mouth of the river, a large trout came out from 

 under the bank, and darted over my fly without taking it. 

 I changed the fly, and he did the same thing. I tried him 

 with a dozen different sorts, and he invariably played the 

 same trick, coming out from under the bank, dashing at the 

 fly, then turning short round or rolling over it. At last a 

 minature black midge in my book caught my eye, and I put 

 it on : the moment I cast this fly over the trout lie came 

 straight at it in quite a different manner, taking it well into 

 his wide mouth as if at last in earnest. He was well hooked, 

 and then came the tug of war and the trial of patience. The 

 fly was literally. speaking a midge, made more as an experi- 

 ment in fly-making than for any expected use, and it was 

 tied on the finest gut. The trout, on finding that instead of 

 catching a fly he was caught himself, immediately began to 

 try every device that a trout ever imagined to get rid of his 

 tiny enemy. Now he was down at the bottom rubbing his 

 nose on the gravel; the next moment flying straight up into 

 the air with the agility of a harlequin; sometimes with forty 

 yards of line out, and sometimes right under my feet ; then 

 away he went as if about to run over the shallow at the end 



