176 Poachers and Poaching. 



opportunity of snapping up a brown trout or 

 silvery samlet that has left its place of refuge. 

 The late Francis Francis was fully aware of this 

 fact, and he set down both gulls and terns as 

 most notorious offenders. A couple of hundred 

 gulls will devour at least a thousand sinolts per 

 day ; and the birds may be seen at Loch Lomond 

 travelling to and from Gull Island and the burns 

 all day, each with a trout or parr in its beak. 

 This must have a considerable effect on the 

 future supply of grilse in the Tweed. 



As to what part the pretty white-breasted 

 dipper plays in the economy of salmon rivers 

 and trout streams naturalists are by no means 

 agreed. Frank Buckland said that one might 

 as well shoot a swallow skimming over a 

 turnip-field as a dipper over the spawning 

 beds. And this view of the dipper's economy 

 we believe to be the right and justone. 

 Last autumn we had occasion to walk over 

 many miles of trout streams. In these, 

 fish of every size were upon the gravel beds 

 which constitute the spawning " redds." Almost 

 at every turn the white chemisette of the brook 

 bird glinted from some grey stone and went 

 piping before us up stream. As many of these 

 were seen actually rummaging among the pebbles, 

 some few were shot for examination. Although 

 the post-mortems were carefully conducted, no 



