44 DAYS AND NIGHTS OF SALMON FISHING 



day, but by various other means in a wholesale 

 manner. 



Mr. William Laidlaw,* a gentleman mentioned 

 with so much merited praise in the best biographical 

 work extant, perhaps, who formerly lay under the 

 general misapprehension regarding the Parr, writes 

 to me as follows : 



" So great was the number of Parrs in the rivulet 

 of Douglas Burn, that I have seen five dozen taken 

 out of one small pool with aid of a pair of old 

 blankets ; and I and my playfellows, when boys, 

 have committed great havoc by damming up one of 

 the streams, where the rivulet happened to divide 

 into two, and laying the other as dry as we could. 

 The Parrs were so numerous, that we used to make 

 the water white with the milt of those we killed. 

 When the water was lowering, the poor creatures, 

 instead of swimming downwards, where they would 

 have had a chance of safety, all kept swattering 

 upwards, and we actually killed them by hundreds. 

 But a fact, which I could not account for, was this 

 namely, that they appeared to come up the rivulet 

 during the early part of the summer only ; but after 

 the month of September there were very few to be 

 seen, and not any in October ; and when this dis- 

 covery relative to the Parr was first made, and / 

 think it was from yourself I had it twenty years ago, 

 I used to notice that there were scarcely any Parrs 

 in the Tweed during the winter months/' 



So far Mr. Laidlaw. The disappearance of the 



* I am greatly indebted to this gentleman for his communica- 

 tions respecting T. Purdie. 



