SOME FISHING RECORDS 117 



caught in two or three pools of the Add, to which fish 

 had access at every high tide, thirty-five salmon of 

 from 1 7^ to 4^ lb. in five days. There had been no rain 

 since early in August, and the water was extraordinarily 

 low, bright, and clear; nevertheless the fish, which 

 were swarming in the pools, beyond which they could 

 not get, rose very readily at a small fly on fine gut, and 

 I easily beat any record I had previously made with 

 the water in perfect order, getting ten one day and 

 twelve another. I cannot suggest any satisfactory 

 explanation of their conduct, except that they were 

 remarkably hungry after a long involuntary fast. 



The great success attained by Mr. Naylor's 

 artificial sprite invites imitation, and is not an isolated 

 instance of the regulation of the height of a salmon 

 river by engineering works. It is obvious, however 

 that such experiments can only be successfully under- 

 taken in a limited number of places and under 

 exceptionally favourable conditions. It is a ticklish 

 thing to meddle with the free flow of a West Coast 

 burn, thereby incurring the responsibility for the 

 destruction caused by floods, which would be almost 

 sure, rightly or wrongly, to be attributed to the man 

 who had dammed the stream. A chain of lochs, as at 

 Grimersta, is almost essential for the conduct of such 

 engineering works, as otherwise one or more artificial 



