AND ANGLING SONGS. 1/5 



entitled to. That the river maintains its character in this re- 

 spect I make no question, seeing that its waters are not intruded 

 on to an unreasonable extent by manufactories, and that from 

 its level nature, and that of the country skirting it, it is but 

 slightly affected by draining operations. 



My last rod-in-hand visit to this river is certainly not of recent 

 date. I find it jotted down in my journal as having taken place 

 in June 1834, and as embracing six days, only a small portion 

 of each, however, being devoted to angling. The section of 

 Tyne fished over on this occasion takes its course through the 

 Stevenson policy-grounds, which subtend those of Amisfield, the 

 seat of the Earl of Wemyss. It was, even in those days, a 

 strictly preserved piece of water, and plentifully stocked with 

 trout, but it had not the repute of the open ranges immediately 

 below it for the size and quality of its finny inhabitants, a two- 

 pounder forming only an occasional prize, whereas fish of much 

 greater weight used to be frequently taken in the under-stretches 

 of the river. My successes at Stevenson, during the six days 

 spent there, were varied, but the weather being calm and the 

 water still, I had only the evenings to depend on, two of which 

 I find alluded to in my journal, in connexion each with the cap- 

 ture of upwards of a score of good trout. They are of course 

 not worth recounting, except for the associations they hold with 

 a river where the angling public in Scotland were made, for the 

 first time, to understand their position in the eye of the law, 

 which is simply this, that a public right of way, coupled with use 

 and wont in the exercise of it for fishing purposes, and with a 

 right in the fishes themselves before capture, as res ullius, gives 

 no title whatsoever to the community at large to angle with 

 the rod. 



