74 TREATISE ON FLY-FISHING. 



The ingenuity of the sportsman has been taxed 

 to vary the means of capturing the salmon. 

 Sometimes they are shot whilst leaping the weirs, 

 at others they are speared by torch lights from the 

 banks of rivers, or from boats. The otter has 

 been trained to catch and bring the fish to his 

 master ; and, in " Red Gauntlet," we find a lively 

 sketch of a salmon chase, which is thus described 

 by Darsie Latimer, in one of his letters to Allan 

 Fairford. 



" The scene was animated by the exertions of 

 a number of horsemen, who were employed in 

 hunting salmon. Aye, Alan, lift up your hands 

 and eyes as you will, I can give their mode of 

 fishing no name so appropriate, for they chased 

 the fish at full gallop, and struck them with their 

 barbed spears, as you see hunters spearing boars 

 in the old tapestry. The salmon, to be sure, take 

 the thing more quietly than the boars ; but they 

 are so swift in their own element, that to pursue 

 and strike them is the task of a good horseman 



