18 BEMINISCENCES OP THE LEWS. 



too cold, and there is no snow on tlie hills or in 

 the water. By spring fishing, I mean that you 

 may catch fresh salmon in the Grimesta in the 

 spring — not kelts or foul fish, of which you 

 may catch any number, if you choose to devote 

 yourself to such ignoble diversion. Why it has 

 this superiority I cannot say, only that it has it. 

 I hav€ caught three or four spring fish in a day 

 in the Grimesta. 



In the Blackwater, two miles from it, I 

 never caught but two spring fish in twenty 

 years, and in the Laxay I do not think I 

 ever caught a dozen spring fish in the same 

 space of time. I am no great believer, from 

 experience, in spring fishing anywhere, though 

 no doubt it does exist ; but there is none, that 

 I could ever find, in the Lews, except the 

 Grimesta. The Laxay I believe to be a very 

 early river, and the fresh fish there begin run- 

 ning in December, or at any rate by Christmas, 

 just as they did in Killarney ; and the run of 

 salmon is over by the middle or latter end of 

 March. Sea-trout are plentiful in the Grimesta, 

 bub they do not run large — not so large as in 

 the lochs in the Park — nothing like so large as 

 those in the Harris lochs, which are the best I 

 have ever seen. At the time that I am speak- 

 ing of, Hogarth had the net fishing of the 



