REQUISITES FOE SUCCESSFUL FISHING. 321 



vigorous, decided and prompt in emergency, with the 

 constitution of a water- spaniel and the ingenuity of an 

 Arkwright or a Fulton. Being deficient in many, more 

 particularly in the latter requisites, I was compelled to 

 shut up shop by putting up my rod in its canvas covering, 

 regretting my bad luck, my stupidity, and last, though not 

 least, the fish that had worsted me at my own game. Not 

 being in the best of humour, of course Jock was out of the 

 way, and not within hailing distance. What a capital 

 chance to vent the balance of my spleen, not at all improved 

 by the confounded flies, whose attacks since I had ceased 

 to be employed, became more noticeable ; in truth, if it 

 were possible, I doubt not that I should have liked to saddle 

 the boy with his absence being the cause of my mishap. 

 After several times shouting his name, he at length appeared, 

 hat in hand, bare-headed, with a smile of child-like satis- 

 faction on his face that, even in my irate state, I had not 

 the heart to destroy. To my inquiry where he had been, 

 with a look of satisfaction he informed me he had found 

 and harried a nest, producing his hat full of the stolen 

 treasures. After giving him a lecture on the impropriety 

 of such a course, and the probabilities of his being devoured 

 by wolves and bears, or even cannibals, if he left my side, I 

 could not help making an inspection of what his hat con- 

 tained. Truly, he had a hat full, for upwards of a dozen 

 pale, cinnamon-blotched eggs, a trifle larger than those of 

 the domestic pigeon, lay at the bottom. The nest and 

 parent bird, from description, left me in no doubt that 

 Master Jock had deprived some luckless rock ptarmigan 

 (Lagopus albus) of her embryo brood ; and, after lecturing 



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