88 SALMON FISHING IN THE TWEED 



placed, the fish is not. There is an immense 

 trout in Loch Awe in Scotland, which is so 

 voracious, and swallows his own species with such 

 avidity, that he has obtained the name of Salmo 

 ferox. I pull about this unnatural monster till he 

 is tired, land him, and give him the coup de grace. 

 Is this cruel ? Cruelty " should be made of sterner 

 stuff." There is a certain spurious sort of humanity 

 going about that I cannot understand. Thus I 

 know a lady who will not eat game, because, she 

 says, shooting is a cruel amusement ; but she is 

 very much addicted to fowls, and all domestic 

 poultry, feeding them one day, and eating them 

 up the next, with treacherous alacrity and amiable 

 perseverance. It would be more candid in her, 

 therefore, to say to us sportsmen, like the fox in 

 the fable, 



" Go, but be moderate in your food ; 

 A pheasant too might do me good. 11 



" I once saw," says the learned and accomplished 

 Dr. Gillespie, " one of these all-devouring fish in a 

 curious predicament. In fishing, or rather strolling, 

 within these few years, with a rod in one hand 

 and a book in the other, so as to alternate reading 

 and fishing, as the clouds came and went, I observed 

 a great many June-flies, at which the fish were 

 occasionally rising, and which at the same time 

 were picked up by the swallows, as they skimmed 

 over the surface of the still water. It so happened 

 that a trout from beneath, and a swallow from 

 above, had fixed their affections upon the same 

 yellow- winged and tempting fly. Down came the 



