88 THE SALMON 



' supposed I was going to sell them.' It must not be 

 thought that what I have described above represents 

 an extraordinary day's sport on Tweed. I have 

 purposely selected a moderate one. On November 9, 

 1885, and the four following days Mr. Farquhar 

 and Lord Brougham, fishing on alternate days, killed 

 18, 17, 11, 12, and 10 fish on the same beat, the two 

 rods in the week securing 95 fish. 



Of harling in a loch I have no knowledge, and 

 from what I have heard I do not feel any great 

 ambition to tackle the big fish in Loch Tay. The 

 fishing there is best in the spring, and it must be 

 desperately cold work trailing the big phantom 

 minnows after your boat in a north-east wind, or 

 sometimes in a snowstorm or in frosty air. But I 

 have had some good days in a certain ' damp climate 

 contiguous to a melancholy ocean,' and although my 

 experience is not very recent, bear my testimony to 

 the excellence of the free fishing at Waterville in the 

 late ' sixties.' 



It was in the height of the Fenian agitation that I 

 visited that beautiful coast with an Oxford friend ; a 

 large and weighty box of books testified to our inten- 

 tion of reading, but served no other purpose beyond 

 that of trying the temper of the cardrivers and the 

 strength and pluck of their game little horses. My 



