16 THE PRACTICAL ANGLER 



Water in Peeblesshire. All these streams run very 

 slowly ; in some of them there are miles where it is 

 difficult to tell at first sight which way the water is 

 flowing. They all contain large, well-shaped, and in 

 general red-fleshed trout, owing to the superior feeding 

 which such streams, running over a bottom of mud 

 or marl, possess, and also to the circumstance that 

 they are generally not numerous. This last fact is 

 due to a number of causes. Deep, slow- running 

 streams are not favourable for spawning, trout 

 requiring briskly-running, shallow water for that 

 purpose. They are also ill-provided with stones and 

 gravel, where the young fry may shelter themselves 

 from their rapacious relatives, and from pike, which 

 generally abound in such places, and commit sad 

 havoc. It is observed that wherever these fresh- 

 water tyrants are found, the trout attain large size? 

 those that escape getting double the quantity of 

 food they would under ordinary circumstances. It 

 seems as if the feeding of a river could only support 

 a certain weight of trout, so that where they are 

 very numerous they are not large, and vice versd* 

 Hence proprietors of ponds sometimes drag them 

 with a net, and take out the small fish to improve the 

 size of the remainder. 



Of the opposite class from those just mentioned 

 are very rapid and hard-bottomed streams. Of this 

 kind are most Highland streams, a few in the hilly 

 parts of the Lowlands, and numerous hill-burns. 

 The rapidity with which their waters run, and the 

 smoothness and solidity of their channels, prevent 



