THE BULL-TROUT. 225 



when the net fishings close, and end of November, I 

 have no doubt that, in ordinary seasons, fully a million 

 of these fish enter Tweed, and push upward to the very 

 sources of its tributaries and their feeders. I have seen 

 them, weighing five or six pounds, taken by means of 

 the leister, out of insignificant burns close to Mosspaul; 

 I have known them to be captured, by the score, in the 

 upper portions of the main river, of Lyne, Manor, Gala, 

 Yarrow, Ettrick, and Leader, sometimes in mere threads 

 of water connected with these streams. They frequent 

 the Ale, Kale, and Oxnam running into Teviot. They 

 ascend the Till and Whitadder, wending their way 

 around the bases of Cheviot and into the heart of the 

 Lammermuirs. 



During these journeys, which are undertaken for the 

 purpose of spawning, the bull-trout, unlike the salmon, 

 is not content to fast, as it proceeds. It is evidently a 

 fish of great voracity, but endowed with strong instincts 

 and perceptions. In the very heat of its progress, it 

 may be enticed readily to the hook, by means of salmon 

 roe employed as a bait, especially on a cold day and 

 when the water is large and discoloured. Its sense of 

 smell, in common with that of the river trout and whit- 

 ling, is so delicate as to occasion the detection of the 

 above-mentioned bait, at the distance of many yards, 

 and in a favourable state of water, it will seldom refuse 

 it. I have known of as many as twenty fish of this 

 description, weighing on the average three pounds 

 a-piece, having been taken, by means of a single rod, 

 and in the course of a few hours, from Tweed, all of 

 which were on the run upwards, as, on occasions of this 

 sort, is indicated by their coming to the surface every 

 now and then. At the period referred to, although fre- 

 quently they exhibit an attractive appearance externally, 



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