42 SALMON FISHING IN THE TWEED 



the Carter, the Borthwick, the Leader, the Ettrick, 

 the Yarrow, the Lyne, the Eddlestone, the Manor, 

 the Quhair, with many smaller burns and mountain 

 streams. In floods salmons enter and spawn in most 

 of these rivers, if not in all of them ; at the subsid- 

 ing of the waters some of them fall back, and some 

 are left nearly dry, and easily captured. It is 

 ordained by nature that the parr should in these 

 cases impregnate such ova as have been deposited, 

 perhaps because he is not so easily discovered, or 

 such an object of attraction as a salmon. What an 

 ample space the above streams present for the 

 destruction of the fry ! And not only are they 

 killed by the rod, each urchin, perhaps, taking eight 

 or ten dozen a day, but by various other means in 

 a wholesale manner. 



Mr. William Laidlaw, 1 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, 



1 I am greatly indebted to this gentleman for his communications 

 respecting T. Purdie. 



