THE ESK AND THE LEET. 23 



bright and hot, I killed with the worm, out of the 

 same stretch of water, betwixt Castlelaw and Bought- 

 rig, forty-two trout, weighing upwards of twenty -three 

 pounds ; also, on a similar day in June, 1846, betwixt 

 ten and two o' clock in the forenoon, I managed to 

 encreel three dozen and five fish, the largest of which 

 was a three-pounder, and there were at least twelve 

 others that weighed a pound a-piece. The gross weight, 

 on this occasion, I neglected to take note of, but it 

 certainly approached two stone. 



I mention these facts, not by way of recounting any- 

 thing extraordinary achieved with the rod, but simply 

 in order to show, that the size of trout does not depend 

 greatly upon the size of the stream they inhabit, but 

 to a large degree upon the superiority of the feeding, 

 and the accommodation, or shelter afforded them. As 

 a contrast to the above-mentioned rivulet, I may name 

 the Esk, in Dumfriesshire, a river, entitled from its 

 width and discharge, to be reckoned among our 

 second-class waters. The trout which this river con- 

 tains, seldom attain the weight of half-a-pound. They 

 are also, comparatively speaking, thinly scattered 

 throughout its streams ; and these circumstances are 

 owing, partly to the scarcity of food, and partly to the 

 inconvenient nature of the shelter which is furnished, 

 not, as in Tweed or Teviot, throughout the course of 

 the channel, but only here and there, in irregular 

 pools, among rocks and shifting gravels. It is the 

 same on the Dee, and other rivers of a similar cha- 

 racter ; while streams, wholly insignificant in point of 

 dimensions, often produce large and well-conditioned 

 trout, or, what is equivalent, an abundance of small 

 and middle-sized ones. Leet, Eden, Kale, Bowmont- 

 water, are instances of this sort, in my own neighbour- 



