LONE LOCH WEE 77 



indeed ill-luck must be very general in Scotland, 

 for there are few parts where the curlew is not 

 common: but in Galloway it is the "bleating" of 

 the snipe which forecasts misfortune. 



Few of us are without some touch of super- 

 stition in our nature, believing, to some extent, 

 in our inmost hearts, in good or bad omens — least 

 of all the angler. To him the question of good 

 or ill luck is of daily occurrence, always present 

 to his mind. What fisherman is there who does 

 not possess some favourite rod which catches the 

 most fish ? Or an old and tried minnow (no 

 better to all appearance than scores of others), 

 the lucky one when trolling? So there was little 

 wonder on this morning, when the illusive and 

 mocking laughter of the snipe could be heard, 

 somewhere away up in the blue, that I knew the 

 chances of catching fish that day were small. 



It is in the spring-time that a man may hear 

 this jeering laugh : there is something human 

 in it ; it has a portentous joviality, as might the 

 laugh of a devil greeting the soul of the damned. 

 The naturalist will tell you — the man of science, 

 ever ready with the commonplace — that it is 

 caused by the wings of the bird drumming against 



