162 DAYS AND NIGHTS OF SALMON FISHING 



Host. " John, tell the cook we will have him for 

 dinner to-day. Dutch sauce, remember/' 



Piscator. " You need not be in such a hurry to 

 send to the cook, for I am sorry to say I did not 

 catch him." 



Host. " Not catch him not catch him ! Im- 

 possible, with all your skill, armed as you are to 

 the teeth, with roach, bleak, minnows, frogs, kill- 

 devils, and the deuce knows what. Not catch him ! 

 Come, you're joking/' 



Piscator. " Serious, I assure you. I never was 

 so beat before, and yet I never fished better ; but 

 though I did not absolutely hook him, he ran at me 

 several times." 



An universal shout of laughter followed this 

 assertion, which made my friend not a little sus- 

 picious ; but he never again touched upon the 

 subject. Some time afterwards, wandering near the 

 scene of his operations, he saw an immense carving 

 of a pike placed upon a pole near the margin of the 

 water, and painted beautifully : he guessed he had 

 seen him before. 



Let us now return to the Scotch rivers. 



The Tay, which rises from, and is approximated 

 by, vast and desolate regions of moss and moor, 

 preserves its volume of water much longer than 

 those rivers that have their sources in a more 

 pastoral and agricultural country, and of course is 

 much longer in good order for fly fishing. But 

 when the black clouds burst over the vast wilder- 

 ness of mountains, a hundred torrents gleam on 

 all sides, rush down the rocky ravines, and change 



