WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS 



of toddy to a row with a party of wild Badenoch poachers, 

 who, though good-natured enough on the whole, were deter- 

 mined to have their night's fun out in spite ofall opposition. 

 There are worse poachers, too, than these said Highland- 

 ers, who only come down now and then more for the amuse- 

 ment than the profit of the thing; and whom it is generally 

 better policy to keep friends with than to make enemies of. 

 The ponderous lexicographer, who describes a fishing- 

 rod as a stick with a fool at one end, and a worm at the 

 other, displays in this saying more wit than wisdom. Not 

 that I quite go the whole length of my quaint and amiable 

 old friend, Izaak Walton, who implies in every page of his 

 paragon of a book, that the art of angling is the summum 

 bonum of happiness, and that an angler must needs be the 

 best of men. I do believe, however, that no determined 

 angler can be naturally a bad or vicious man. No man who 

 enters into the silent communings with Nature, whose 

 beauties he must be constantly surrounded by, and familiar 

 with during his ramblings as an angler, can fail to be im- 

 proved in mind and disposition during his solitary wander- 

 ings amongst the most lovely and romantic works of the 

 creation,in the wild H ighland glens and mountains through 

 which the best streams take their course. I do not include 

 in my term angler, the pond or punt fisher, however well 

 versed he may be in the arts of spitting worms and impal- 

 ing frogs, so learnedly discussed by Izaak — not withstand- 

 ing the kindliness and simplicity of heart so conspicuous 

 in every line he writes. Angling in my sense of the word 

 implies, wandering with rod and creel in the wild solitudes, 

 and tempting (or endeavouring to do so) the fish from their 



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