Introduction xli ii 



a thing prohibited and very popular in Scotland. 

 " If I had known it but twenty years agoe, I would 

 have gained a hundred pounds onely with that bait. 

 I am bound in duty to divulge it to your Honour, 

 and not to carry it to my grave with me. I do de- 

 sire that men of quality should have it that delight 

 in that pleasure: the greedy angler will murmur at 

 me, but for that I care not." Barker calls salmon 

 roe "an experience I have found of late: the best 

 bait for a trout that I have seen in all my time," 

 and it is the most deadly, in the eddy of a turbid 

 water. Perhaps trout would take caviare, which is 

 not forbidden by the law of the land. Any un- 

 scrupulous person may make the experiment, and 

 argue the matter out with the water-bailie. But, in 

 my country, it is more usual to duck that official, 

 and go on netting, sniggling, salmon-roeing, and 

 destroying sport in the sacred name of Liberty. 



Scots wha fish wi* salmon roe, 

 Scots wha sniggle as ye go, 

 Wull ye stand the Bailie ? No t 

 Let the limmer die I 



Now's the day and now's the time, 

 Poison a' the burns wi' lime, 

 Fishing fair's a dastard crime, 

 We're for fishing free I 



" Ydle persones sholde have but lyttyl mesure in 

 the sayd disporte of fysshyng," says our old Treatise, 

 but in southern Scotland they have left few fish to 

 dysporte with, and the trout is like to become an 

 extinct animal. Izaak would especially have dis- 

 liked Fishing Competitions, which, by dint of the 

 multitude of anglers, turn the contemplative man's 

 recreation into a crowded skirmish ; and we would 

 repeat his remark, "the rabble herd themselves 

 together" (a dozen in one pool, often), "and en- 

 deavour to govern and act in spite of authority ". 



