268 TOUR IN SUTHERLANDSHIRE. 



flaps his tail, and darts off again as strong as ever, taking 

 good care to go right under the boat again. At last, how- 

 ever, patience and good tackle and skill begin to tell ; and, 

 after two or three more feeble efforts to escape, your noble- 

 looking fellow of a trout is safely lodged in the bottom of the 

 landing-net. 



Inverness-shire and the west of Ross-shire and Sutherland 

 are intersected by numerous excellent salmon rivers and 

 beautiful lakes, full to overflowing of trout and pike. It is a 

 fallacy to suppose that pike are at all detrimental to the 

 sport of the fly-fisher at least, in a Highland lake, where 

 there is depth and space enough for both trout and pike to 

 live and flourish in. Of course, pike kill thousands and tens 

 of thousands of small trout. But the principal thing to be 

 regretted in almost all Highland lakes is that there are far 

 too many trout in them, and that the fly-fisher may work for 

 a month without killing a trout of two pounds weight. Pike 

 keep down this overstock, and yet still leave plenty of trout, 

 which are of a better size and quality than where they are 

 not thinned. I have invariably found that this is the case, 

 and that I could kill a greater weight of trout in a loch where 

 there are pike, than where they had not these their natural 

 enemies to keep down the undue increase in their numbers. 

 Pike, too, are by no means exclusively piscivorous ; they are 

 as omnivorous as a pig or an alderman. A great part of the 

 food of a pike consists of frogs, leeches, weeds, &c., &c. 

 Young wild ducks, water-hens, coots, and even young rats, 

 do not come amiss to him. Like a shark, when hungry, the 

 pike swallows anything and everything which comes within 

 reach of his murderous jaws. 



If the fact could be ascertained, I would back a " Salmo 

 ferox " of ten pounds weight to kill more trout in a week 

 than a pike of the same size would do in a month. I never 

 killed a tolerably large trout without finding within him the 

 remains of other trout, sometimes, too, of a size that must 

 have cost him 'some trouble to swallow. In fact, I am 

 strongly of opinion that pike deserve encouragement in all 

 large Highland lakes where the trout are numerous and 

 small. There is also no doubt that trout follow up the lex 

 talionis, and feed on the young pike as freely as pike feed on 

 young trout. 



There are numberless fine lakes in the interior of the 

 northern counties, situated in wild and sequestered spots 



