CORTACHY TO PERTH. 245 



tosses his fish in the air, catches him again, and, 

 after three bites, throws him away contemptuously, 

 with just the bare back-bone attached to the head. 

 Four large salmon, weighing very little short of 

 lOOlbs. avoirdupois, were taken by one in an hour 

 before Mr. Speedie's very eyes, so that he may 

 well place a guinea on the head of a " 7V-stone black 

 rascal' 3 and vow " to make him out next year if I'm 

 spared" Bines are of no avail unless you hit the 

 brain ; and one great fellow was taken at last, full of 

 conical and spherical balls, which had merely come 

 to grief in his fat. A seal net, with a salmon dan- 

 gling from the top of the chamber, is the only sure way 

 of catching them, and it takes eight or ten men to 

 work it properly. 



The ooze was one orchestra of sea-birds. " Larks 

 of the woodcock tribe," with brown backs and 

 white breasts, were skimming along over the 

 shallows, without any definite object, like gentle- 

 men " unattached." Sea pyats were mingling their 

 shrieks with the low cry of the curlew; and the sea 

 scarts were the busiest fishermen of the whole, and 

 screaming out their protests in chorus, when the 

 hawks, " who like the other lads to fish for them," 

 pounced on them with the dash of a Semmes, and 

 made them hand over on the spot. Thus the 

 Speedies and the sea scarts are equally tried in this 

 life. 



This great fish dealer has 200 men in work, and up- 

 wards of twenty stations on the Fife and Montrose 



