INCREASE OF PIKE IN TEVIOT. 301 



discovered in their shape and appearance the effects of 

 ample and good feeding. An acquaintance of mine, 

 also, not long after, caught a perch with the minnow in 

 the same place a circumstance which very rarely, if 

 ever, happened so far down Teviot, certainly not in a 

 rough, rapid stream which the greater portion of the 

 cast in question consists of. 



But indications of the increase of pike are, I under- 

 stand, not confined to Teviot. They extend also to 

 some of the pools in Tweed about Carham, &c. For- 

 tunately, however, very few localities belonging to this 

 river favour, as permanent haunts, their numerical 

 increase. The rapid and clear nature of its waters, as 

 well as their comparative freedom from weeds and bye- 

 pools, secure the salmon-fry against any possibility 

 of their suffering, as those in Teviot and Tay do, from 

 the assaults of so merciless an enemy. It is needless, 

 however, to pursue this subject, being entirely one of 

 local consequence, any further ; nor have I done so up 

 to the present point, with any intention of actually 

 depreciating the fish in question as a sporting, or what 

 a learned judge on the Scottish bench has expressed it, 

 a game fish ; all I wish to be inferred is, that its intro- 

 duction into salmon or trouting waters is a matter of 

 policy highly questionable that at no time ought the 

 rearing of a few pike to be effected, at the sacrifice of 

 what are generally acknowledged, both with regard to 

 sport itself and in their edible qualities, so very 

 superior.* 



* Since penning the above remarks, events have occurred, which, to a 

 certain extent, appear contradictory to what I have stated. Early in 

 August, 1846, a flood, unparalleled in the memory of the oldest inhabi- 

 tant of Teviotdale, took place, and one effect of this extraordinary over- 

 flow of the valley has been to break up the harbours of the pike in Teviot, 



