AND ANGLING SONGS. 157 



proper observance of the laws of the Sunday's slap, and that it 

 appeared to him the fish became guided by a kind of instinct to 

 take advantage of it. In relation to his rod-fishings near Contin, 

 this remarkable circumstance, he told me, had frequently come 

 under his notice, namely, the capture on the Tuesday, rarely, if 

 ever, on the Monday, of one or more fresh-run salmon, it being 

 ascertained, on after inquiry, that throughout the previous week 

 the fishings with the net carried on below the cruives had been 

 wholly unproductive. In July a good many sea- trout press into 

 the Conon, and, during the remainder of the season, that lively 

 little fish, the finnock or whitling, in its grilse stage, frequents 

 abundantly the lowest division of the river. The Blackwater, 

 probably from its mossy nature, is repellent to this species of 

 the Salmonidce, although it is occasionally taken by the angler 

 from its lower streams. 



In the spring of 1836, during the months of February and 

 March, I caught numbers of finnocks in a kelted state near 

 Brahan Castle. Now and then I came across a spent salmon 

 with my trouting-tackle. The 17th of February is marked in 

 my journal as a day passed with Mr. W. Laidlaw, on which, 

 besides landing several finnocks, I had my slight single-handed 

 rod severely tested by two large fish of the above description. 

 It was on that, or a corresponding occasion, that I received, what 

 I have alluded to in the Angler's Companion, a memento of 

 some value, viz., a portion of the fishing-tackle stowed away in 

 a drawer along with the original MS. of Waverley. It consisted 

 simply of a round-bend hook, No. 10 Adlington, a few brown 

 hackles, and a single length of horse-tail hair, the last-mentioned 

 article being so superior in quality to anything of the kind I ever 

 happened to fall in with, that I never look at it without being 

 reminded of the feat performed by a quondam minister of Gala- 

 shiels, a neighbour and personal friend of Sir Walter, who, on 

 the Boldside Water, near Abbotsford, played and landed a newly- 



