POACHING 167 



because a small piece of paper was attached to the 

 barb of the ' Captain ' or ' Jock Scott ' to indicate its 

 whereabouts. Frightened salmon, as Scrope mentions, 

 take refuge under stones or clods, and I remember 

 one noted fisherman, who ought to have known better, 

 promising a certain lady that she should catch a fish, 

 and actually with his fingers putting the hook 

 attached to her line into the fish's mouth as it sheltered 

 close to the bank. Sometimes such crimes were 

 justly punished ; and one leader of society may recall 

 an occasion when the bank gave way with her, and 

 she was precipitated into a pool amid shouts of 

 merriment from the unfeeling spectators, and the 

 difficulties entailed by the process of drying her drip- 

 ping garments and providing her with an impromptu 

 rig-out. But I only mention these shocking occur- 

 rences in order to stamp them with my condemnation. 

 We were young then, and the century, alas ! a good 

 deal younger than it is now, and no doubt such 

 things are never done by our more enlightened and 

 respectable children. 



A curious collection of salmon-poaching imple- 

 ments, exhibited at the International Fisheries Ex- 

 hibition of 1883 by Mr. Henry Ffennell, was one of 

 the great attractions of that successful show. Although 

 it contained no models, all the implements shown 



