AND ANGLING SONGS. IQ5 



A single word as to the fly termed the ' Professor,' so much run 

 upon at one time in Edinburgh. There is a story .afloat of its 

 origin, which, although I cannot positively affirm that it came to 

 my ears through a very direct channel, I feel inclined to give 

 credit to. It is simply this : that on the occasion of a pedestrian 

 tour, rod in hand, through the Highlands, shortly after his mar- 

 riage, and in company with Mrs. Wilson, the Professor's stock 

 of loch flies running short, he had recourse to the decorating of 

 a bait hook with floral spoils ; the yellow of the butter-cup, or 

 other golden ornament of the meadow being employed to disguise 

 the shank and tit-bits of a brown grass blade or leaf made to 

 serve as wings. The success met with by means of this con- 

 trivance led, I have been told, to the invention of the fly in 

 question, which is also designated ' Yellow Mantle ; ' a lure, the 

 persuasive virtues of which I have often availed myself of on 

 our Highland lakes, where it is more readily accepted than on 

 Tweed or Teviot, in their usual transparent conditions. I look 

 upon it, in fact, as ' a fail-me- never' on the Ross-shire and 

 Sutherland waters, not to mention those of Argyle, Perth, and 

 Inverness. 



THE FAIRY ANGLER. 



i. 



'TWAS a bland summer's eve when the forest I trod : 

 The dew-gems were starring the flowers of the sod, 

 And ' faire mistress moone,' as she rose o'er the heath, 

 Threw her spells of chaste light on the landscape beneath. 



ii. 



I pass'd by a brook where her silvers lay flung ; 

 Among knolls of wild fern, it witchingly sung ; 

 While a lone fairy angler, with glimmering hand, 

 From the thyme-laden banks waved her delicate wand. 



