102 EEMINISCENCES OF THE LEWS. 



fishing at first produces such good sport ? 

 Simply because the fish, poor innocents, don't 

 know the difierence between a natural and 

 artificial fly, or what a fly is. But they soon 

 learn it. Flogging a river for ever, because 

 you may catch a fish, is like disturbing good 

 shooting ground on a bad day, when you thrash 

 yourself, your dogs, and your men, all to no 

 purpose, make yourself exceedingly uncomfort- 

 able, spoil the beat, and, if you do get any* 

 thing, it is scarce worth bringing home. There 

 is a certain amount of folly in being over keen. 

 If you must have exercise, go out and get 

 yourself as wet as a shag ; but why drag every- 

 one else into discomfort ? 



I said that there were two branches of the 

 Blackwater, one issuing out of the New Loch, 

 the other out of Loch Dismal. The branch 

 out of New Loch was far inferior, to all 

 appearance, to that from Loch Dismal, yet it 

 was possible to kill fish in the one, but not in 

 the other. There was some long, deep, sludgy 

 water that you could jump over, and one or 

 two little pools, which in flood water held fish, 

 and rising fish too. It was my great delight, 

 when my comrades were on the river, to betake 

 myself to these quaint little places, and many a 

 fish I got out of them. In the narrows it was 



