58 SALMON FISHING IN THE TWEED 



which Professor Council supported Dr. Gillespie's 

 views, and Dr. Reid those of Sir D. Brewster." 



This subject is in such good hands, that I shall 

 not intrude any speculative observations of my 

 own. We have lately seen such wonderful effects 

 produced by the agency of light, that these things 

 are become less startling. 



It is very certain that trouts and salmon are less 

 vivid in colour, and in fact more grey, when they 

 have been some time out of their element ; fish- 

 mongers throw water from time to time over their 

 fish, as well to preserve their colour as to keep 

 them fresh. I would recommend any one who 

 wishes to show his day's sport in the pink of 

 perfection, to keep his trouts in a wet cloth, so 

 that on his return home he may exhibit them to 

 his admiring friends, and extract from them the 

 most approved of epithets and exclamations, taking 

 the praise bestowed upon the fish as a particular 

 compliment to himself. 



Since our writing the above remarks, I have 

 paid more attention to the subject, and am enabled 

 to state that in one particular part of the river 

 Chess, I have been in the habit of taking trouts of 

 a darker and greyer colour than those which I 

 captured in the other parts of this little stream ; 

 and, observing this to be invariably the case, I 

 desired my fisherman to scoop up some of the 

 channel with his landing net, which proved upon 

 inspection to be part of a stratum of black flint. 



I can state farther, what appears to me to be 

 altogether a curious circumstance. I had often 

 observed that the largest of those trout which 



