AND ANGLING SONGS. 43 



nary seasons, would not have failed to snow fish in abundance. 

 On application next morning to the lessee of the lower waters, 

 those subtending Shinness, I was made welcome to try the casts 

 from the Cromarty Pool downwards. Accordingly, with Donald 

 Ross as an attendant, I commenced fishing a little before noon. 

 The streams, as I mentioned, were apparently in good order, and 

 although the day proved sunny, I had high hopes of being able 

 to capture several fish. I persevered, however, most assidu- 

 ously, for at least an hour and a half, trying all sorts of flies, 

 without stirring a fin ; and when a grilse at last came up to the 

 hook, it was only to let me feel his weight, and then, with a 

 shake of the tail, bid me good-bye. In somewhat of the same 

 style, as I proceeded, at a spot called the Angus Turn, a large 

 salmon paid me his respects ; and it was not until I had arrived 

 at the Bridge Pool that I had the satisfaction of hooking and 

 landing a dun grilse. Below this point, at the Garden cast, I 

 got hold of a good fish, but only for a few seconds. In the 

 afternoon I again marched up as high as the Little Fall, below 

 which, at dusk, I captured a beautiful newly-run grilse, the last, 

 I may safely affirm, caught legally with the rod that season in 

 the north of Scotland. Thus ended my piscatorial campaign in 

 Sutherlandshire and the adjoining county, undertaken during a 

 season which was universally admitted by salmon-fishers to have 

 been the worst on record. 



EULOGISTIC-A COMPARISON. 



i. 



THE streams of old Scotland for me ! 



The joyous, the wilful, and wild, 

 The waters of song and of glee, 

 That ramble away to the sea, 



With the step and free mirth of a. child. 



