146 SALMON FISHING 



leaps into the air a blizzard screens him from 

 the eyes. Botanists and poets might deem spring 

 in these regions to be a figure of speech. Occasion- 

 ally, however, it is something more. Now and then 

 the south wind melts the mountain snow-drifts very 

 early in the year, and, through processes of Nature 

 too complex to be explained at present, the tem- 

 perature of the loch becomes higher than the 

 temperature of large streams falling into the Tay. 

 What happens ? Instead of running into the 

 tributaries of the river, such as the Lyon, the spring- 

 fish take the loch. Any one disposed to flout this 

 thought is invited to pause until he has read a 

 passage from the writings of Mr. Archibald Young, 

 advocate, Commissioner of Salmon Fishings in Scot- 

 land. " The Scottish rivers flowing into the German 

 Ocean, 11 Mr. Young wrote, " are almost all early 

 rivers. They have comparatively long courses, and 

 fall into the sea at considerable distances from their 

 mountain sources, after running for some part of 

 their career through districts not greatly elevated 

 and possessing a moderate climate. But the German 

 Ocean, into which these rivers flow, is a cold sea ; and 

 in winter and early spring the river temperature is, 

 in ordinary seasons, much the same as that of the 

 sea, and therefore salmon ascend these rivers early in 

 the season. On the west coast, on the other hand, 

 the rivers that fall into the Atlantic are all late. 

 They have short courses, and their sources are much 

 tilted up, as they rise in that lofty and singularly 

 picturesque chain of mountains which, beginning not 



