THE BILL OR HEELING OF THE ESK. 229 



in numbers that year what I ever recollect them to have 

 been, and I frequently, in the month of October, cap- 

 tured four or five in a forenoon. These were all in good 

 condition, lively on the hook, red-fleshed and well-fla- 

 voured at table. 



Early in November, in the same year, I had occasion 

 to pay a visit to a friend in Dumfries-shire, who resided 

 on the Esk, some miles above Langholm, and within a 

 stone's cast of the river. Wishing to test the attractive 

 power of the salmon roe in that stream, I sallied out 

 one forenoon, rod in hand, to a spot called the Maiden 

 Pool, and had the gratification, in the course of two or 

 three hours, to capture several skellies or chub, one of 

 great size, above two dozen fresh-water trout, and 

 seven or eight bills or foul herlings. Next day, with 

 the salmon-fly, I caught three more of these last- 

 mentioned fish. Of all the bills taken by me not one 

 weighed half-a-pound, and without a single exception, 

 they were kelted females. Externally, a few of them 

 were black and of loathsome appearance, but the gene- 

 rality, although lank, large-headed, and loose in the 

 scale, retained their silvery coating. The question 

 naturally occurring to me, on the capture of those 

 fish was, are the bills or herlings of common species 

 with the finnock or silver-white ? Here they were, at 

 the same period of the year, in very different condition 

 from the latter. (What the finnock is, in this respect, 

 at the season referred to, I never had a fair oppor- 

 tunity of ascertaining, the close-time of our northern 

 rivers commencing on the 14th of September, but judg- 

 ing from what I have related, as occurring early in 

 Spring, on the Nairn water, I draw the inference that 

 many of this tribe retain their condition during Winter). 

 On examining them minutely, I descried two distinct 



