AND ANGLING SONGS. 79 



and straightforward course which leads up into the main strath, 

 and take to the tributary. This is in accordance, however, in 

 some measure, with their habits on other rivers as well as the 

 Earn. On Tweed, for instance, the early sea-trout, which com- 

 prehend what are left of that greatly-reduced species the whitling, 

 show a marked preference for the Whitadder and Till, the latter 

 especially ; while the late ones, those which press into the river 

 by thousands in October and November, evince the same dispo- 

 sition in choosing their breeding-grounds, often forsaking the 

 direct current for a water much inferior in size that meets it at 

 right angles a water, too, which apparently possesses no advan- 

 tage over the other. 



I have noticed that the instinct of these fish leads them away 

 from the arable into the untilled districts. The Kale, on Teviot, 

 affords an illustration in point, so do the heights of the Whitadder 

 and those of Till, in its connexion with the Bowmont. The means 

 which I understand have been taken of recent years by the salmon 

 proprietors of the Tay to give free admission to fish of the salmon 

 kind to the Grlen- Almond breeding-grounds, not far from Perth, 

 lead to the impression that this instinct has to a certain extent 

 become recognised. 



While at Crieff, in 1833, I now and then sauntered up Glen 

 Turret to the loch, four or five miles distant, from which the 

 water of Turret, a mountain-stream, stocked indifferently, in the 

 rapid portions of its course, with small trout, takes its rise. The 

 angling with the rod on Loch Turret was, at the time I speak of, 

 held exempt from challenge ; and of this liberality on the part of 

 the proprietor, Sir W. K. Murray of Ochtertyre, I took occa- 

 sional advantage. It is not a piece of water resembling some of 

 our Highland lakes, in which one is sure, provided he is up to 

 the mark as an angler, of meeting with success. On the con- 

 trary, its trout are of a sulky disposition, and not inclined, simply 

 because the air has a balmy feeling, and the surface of the lake 



