AND ANGLING SONGS. 267 



hunting-grounds, of Tweed and its feeders, than in the whole of 

 Sutherlandshire ; and that, so far from agricultural improvements 

 having acted as a check upon their increase, these very improve- 

 ments, with drainage at their head, have proved the stay and 

 main support of the breed, if they have not, as I am inclined to 

 think, increased it fourfold. 



This I can affirm, that within the last five or six years, in the 

 course of my river- side rambles, rarely undertaken at dusk or 

 daybreak, I have come across more otters than it was my fortune 

 to stumble on, throughout the previous portion of my angling 

 career, when nocturnal and matutinal expeditions were of fre- 

 quency. 



While residing, in 1835-6, in the centre of the most romantic 

 and finely-watered, as well as wooded district in Ross-shire, 

 close to the Conon and Blackwater, the Meig and the Orrin, 

 and in the vicinity of Lochs Garve, Luichart, Achilty, and 

 numerous other lakes containing trout, pike, and char, my daily 

 occupation, for nine or ten months, being fishing and studying 

 the habits of wild animals, I do not recollect coming across, 

 in the course of my wanderings, which not unfrequently com- 

 menced at daydawn and terminated after sunset, a single speci- 

 men of the web-footed fish-slayer. On the following year the 

 scene of my pursuits was transferred to Nairn, and, while living 

 there, I made excursions in all directions, without being favoured 

 even with a fancied glimpse of the spoliator in question ; nor at 

 that period was there any report of its existence in circulation 

 among the sporting community. 



In the notes to The Lays of the Deer-Forest, by John Sobieski 

 Stuart and his brother, an interesting account is given of the 

 Findhorn otters ; but I am not led by it to allot the preference to 

 the Highlands as a stronghold of the lutra mustela. The note I 

 allude to embraces the details of an incident which tends to upset 

 Mr. Young's favourite notion as to the expediency of giving en- 



