LEAVES FROM A GAME BOOK. 21 



salmon and grilse, with about a hundred sea trout, had to 

 be carried back to the boat. The row home in the dusk 

 wound up a real good day of fun, doubtlessly enhanced 

 by the knowledge of having outwitted the poachers and 

 by picturing to ourselves what would be their disgust 

 when later on they made their long journey in the 

 darkness, only to find themselves forestalled. 



These scringing and splash-net poachers are the pests 

 of the West Coast of Scotland, and there is hardly a 

 village or town between Oban and the extreme north 

 but what has its gang or gangs of these pirates. Dry 

 weather is their great opportunity, for as soon as rivers 

 and streams run too low to permit the ascent of salmon 

 and sea trout, these fisli congregate in large numbers 

 in the estuaries, where they become an easy and profit- 

 able prey to the scringe-net of the poacher. Strange to 

 relate, Scotch gamekeepers, unless ordered and incited 

 thereto by their masters, rarely bother their heads about 

 fish preserving, and for this reason numerous are the 

 hauls made by the poachers in undisturbed tranquility. 

 In this respect both owners and renters of fishings, even 



