I A Gossip on a Szitherland Hill- side 279 



that we English never knew the ' quack or pose,' 

 those mediaeval influenzas, till we started Lums, and 

 we still manage to exist ; so let us hope that John 

 Sutherland may take to himself a pocket-napkin 

 and do well yet. 



But, minished and brought low as the trout are, 

 the gentle tourist who likes to spend a warm 

 gleamy day, with a rustling south-westerly wind, in 

 a boat, with a big trout spinning over the stern 

 for Salmo ferox, and the beloved of his heart 

 and a sprinkling of children, well protected against 

 midges, flogging the water right and left, may yet 

 have the chance to bring home a tea-tray full of 

 trout, though, I confess, not often. The trout in 

 the lochs he is likely to frequent have had their 

 noses scratched too often to rise freely ; and I am 

 sorry to say that certain Philistines have increased 

 the mischief by permitting their gillies to use the 

 otter where their own arts failed, and have returned 

 triumphant with a basket of fish, at the expense of 

 spoiling the bay for the rest of the season. Do not 

 permit it, O tourist, for your own sake ; if the gilly 

 otters for you, he will for himself ; you will not gain 

 credit long, for in the vanity of his heart he will be 

 certain to peach, and you will have to pay for your 

 short-lived glory by having spoilt your own sport, 

 and made a poacher of a decent laddie. There 

 exist fishes in some lochs that I should like to know 

 more about. So far north are we that char are 

 caught with a fly in lochs but a few feet above the 



