26 THE SALMON RIVERS OF SCOTLAND 



chemical refuse from dyeing and scouring wool was run into 

 the river untreated before the local mill was burnt down. 

 Greenlaw is a long way upstream, however, and the water is 

 small. 



The Whitadder is the great tributary for sea-trout, and at 

 times large numbers of these fish ascend. The sea-trout of 

 the Tweed is now almost exclusively the bull-trout or round- 

 tail, 8. trutta var. eriox, the same fish as ascends the Coquet. 

 It is a bad rising fish, however, and a source of much vexation 

 to the angler. So greatly did it multiply in the Coquet that 

 an attempt to reduce the number was made at one time, by 

 removing restrictions for its capture during the spawning 

 season, the object being to increase salmon at the expense of 

 the migratory trout. The round-tail sea-trout is a robust 

 variety, however, and the attempt was abandoned. Now-a- 

 days, the Coquet salmon are reported to be rather more 

 numerous than the trout. In the returns of the Tweed com- 

 mercial fisheries, which have been published in blue books, 

 the trout table seems to maintain its level more steadily than 

 either the salmon or the grilse columns. 



Below the mouth of the Whitadder, the Tweed is not of 

 great use as an angling river. It is the scene of constant 

 netting in the season, and is within tide reach. Within a 

 distance of two miles is Berwick, and thereafter at the end of 

 the pier we see the last of the river. Before the railway viaduct 

 was built the view up Tweed from the old many arched road 

 bridge must have been very fine. I have read somewhere 

 that it gave the traveller an adequate conception of the import- 

 ance of the river, but was apt to give an undue sense of the 

 beauties of the town of Berwick. It is a little difficult to 

 understand what this means if it is not uncomplimentary to 

 Berwick. To one whose chief interest is the river, however, it 

 might be said that if Berwick were as grand a place as London, 

 or even as Edinburgh, the beauties of the river would still hold 

 first place. Yet venerable old Berwick deserves every one's 

 regard. What a place of battles it was ! One can still walk 

 round the remains of its worn battlements and realise in some 

 faint measure the factors which created as tough a set of 

 fighters as were to be found in a long day's march in the fighting 

 times. I believe this characteristic has not yet wholly departed 



