2/6 Notes on Sport and Travel i 



can advise you to pursue, unless you are anxious to 

 inspect the interior of Dornoch gaol. It is true 

 that that establishment is clean and well kept, but 

 the diet is coarse and the pursuits monotonous ; so, 

 on the whole, you had better go to Mr. Young, take 

 out a ticket, and try a fly. 



The Sutherland lakes are beyond all count. I 

 remember being taken to a spot whence I was told I 

 could see a hundred at once (which I did not, for 

 the mist was up to my feet) ; and their products in 

 the shape of trout are as various in shape, colour, 

 and size as the lakes themselves. From the little 

 black tarn, twice the size of a blanket, high up on 

 the hill, to the fresh-water seas of Loch Shin and 

 Loch Hope, they all are, or rather were, swarming 

 with trout. Up in the tarns you may catch endless 

 dozens of things, which a person of lively imagination 

 might class as trout, but which look more like tad- 

 poles, which have gone on growing as such, lacking 

 the strength of mind or strength of constitution to 

 develop themselves into frogs. The larger lakes 

 used to furnish trout of a size, colour, and flavour 

 not to be surpassed by Hampshire itself For the 

 last two or three years the trout in some of the lakes 

 have been infested with tapeworm, which, I am told, 

 was first observed about the time the grouse were 

 attacked by a similar parasite. I do not suppose 

 that they are identical, though the brutes have so 

 many different forms that one hardly knows where 

 to have them ; they have both done mischief enough. 



