CORTACHY TO PERTH. 247 



they are all cocks or all hens, and on the rivers, espe- 

 cially during September and October, hens get very 

 voracious when they are near spawning, and take the 

 fly much more easily. The difference is so marked 

 that, towards the latter end of one September, Mr. 

 Speedie kippered ninety hens, and only two cocks. 

 The fishing is very good at Tent's Muir when the 

 east wind blows right into the shore ; but there has 

 been no vintage like that of '30. In the sea they 

 always go before the wind, and in rivers they swim 

 right into the wind's eye, like ducks up a decoy. 



But we have looked over all the fishing stations, 

 and explored the old nets in the granary, which are 

 to be sold into the paper trade, and we are once more 

 driving over the long stretch of hard sand towards 

 Eden Mouth, rich in spotted trout and mussel beds. 

 The black slug and the mussel scarp are quite a sub- 

 ject of dispute between the solan geese from the Bell 

 Bock and the St. Andrews fishermen who take them 

 off to Aberdeen and Peterhead as bait for haddock 

 and cod, and all the other treasures of the deep-sea 

 fishing. 



There our fishing ends for the day. We have no 

 time for St. Andrews, that fine old city in decay, 

 with its Cathedral and Palace of Cardinal Beatson, 

 and the colleges to which thousands of students 

 Campbell and Chalmers, Ivory and Leslie, Leyden 

 and Milne, Playfair and Ferguson journeyed so 

 reverently in their time. That gorse on the hill, so dear 

 to the Fife, is passed in our homeward ride ; so is the 



