THE TWEED 9 



is left of Talla water enters, for the city of Edinburgh has 

 tapped this beautiful little stream and has constructed a large 

 reservoir on what was previously a marshy meadow. A certain 

 number of spawning fish used to enter Talla, and the loss of 

 spawning ground, and loss of water, was the subject of arbi- 

 tration between the Tweed Commissioners and Edinburgh. 

 Fish are seen up in this neighbourhood only just before the 

 spawning season. One may further say, I think, that the 

 fish are not generally seen for long ; they vanish from sight 

 with singular regularity. I recollect getting a leister from a 

 quaint old man of Tweedsmuir. It was, or is, for I have it 

 still, a rude and heavy weapon of four prongs, probably made 

 by a local blacksmith. I remarked that the prong points 

 were much blunted on the stones of Tweed. " Richt or wrang 

 I dinna ken, Mr. Calderwood," was the reply, " but it's ta'en 

 oot many a dozen." The farm hands in the neighbourhood, 

 and indeed the farmers themselves in some cases, do not 

 consider their winter complete if they have not a night or two 

 at " burning the water." The signs by which the movements 

 of the water bailiffs are made known to the initiated are very 

 interesting, but I am not going to tell how much I know on that 

 point. At Broughton the Biggar water enters. For a few 

 miles it is little but a deep broad ditch, but a good many salmon 

 go up it at " the back end." In times of flood they penetrate 

 into Coulter Burn, which flows from a flat divide, and occasion- 

 ally when the water is high flows to the Clyde at one end and 

 to Biggar Water at the other. Hence it sometimes happens 

 that Tweed salmon find themselves above the Falls of Clyde, 

 and parr are subsequently caught where no parr ought to be. 

 An early writer, one Dr. Pennecuick, writes of the head water 

 of the river as follows : " Tweed runneth for the most part 

 with a soft, yet trotting stream, towards the north-east, the 

 whole length of the country, in several meanders, passing first 

 through the Paroch of Tweed's moor, the place of its birth, then 

 running Eastward, it watereth the parishes of Glenholm, 

 Drumelzear, Broughton, Dawick, Stobo, Lyne, Manor, Peebles, 

 Traquair, Innerleithen, and from thence in its course to the 

 March at Galehope-burn, where, leaving Tweedale, it beginneth 

 to water the Forest on both sides, a little above Elibank." A 

 soft yet trotting stream may be said to be the character the 



