AND ANGLING SONGS. l8l 



The explanation is reasonable, and the circumstance of such a 

 means of communication being made available by spawning fish 

 is not without its parallel. In the case of the river Clyde, several 

 miles above the insuperable Falls of Corra-Linn and Stonebyres, 

 the Salmo eriox of Tweed, in its kelted state, has been caught 

 more than once. Its fry have been so very frequently. One of 

 the cuttings for there are two by which these trout pass over 

 was pointed out to me by the Rev. Mr. Proudfoot of Biggar, in 

 his younger days an enthusiastic angler and accomplished 

 naturalist. 



While summering on the banks of the Devon in 1834, I occa- 

 sionally, armed with pike tackle, took a stroll over to Gartmorn 

 Dam, at that time considered the largest artificial lake or reser- 

 voir in Scotland, covering a surface of more than 160 acres. 

 It was constructed, under the direction of the then Earl of Mar, 

 a celebrated engineer in his day, in 1700, for the purpose of 

 supplying the manufactories and colliery at Alloa with a per- 

 manent sufficiency of water-power, the steam-engine not having 

 as yet come into play. Shortly after its formation, Loch Leveu 

 and other varieties of trout were introduced into it, and are said 

 to have thriven satisfactorily for nearly a century. Unfortu- 

 nately, a pike stock was added, accompanying the increase of 

 which, a gradual diminution in the numbers of the trout took 

 place. At the time of my visits to G-artmorn, the starry sides, 

 in fact, had become extinct, and I was not even so much as en- 

 couraged to try for them by the report of a survivor having been 

 seen in surface-kissing humour near its margins. I played the 

 avenger of their fate, however, to some purpose, slaying with the 

 rod, in the course of two or three visits, nearly a score of pike, 

 my youngest brother, who accompanied me, doing similar execu- 

 tion. In a small burn, called the Black or South Devon, con- 

 nected with this dam, we also caught, on the occasions mentioned, 

 a considerable number of trout. My reminiscences of trout- 



