AND ANGLING SONGS. 329 



III. 



Ah ! each feat and each frolic the pastimes of old,- 



They seem as if left for me yet ; 

 While a-near on the indolent pool I behold 



The fisherman shooting his net. 



IV. 



But see ! how the silvery salmon springs 



Exultant under the shade ; 

 And the trout is rearing its wily rings 



Before me, all unafraid. 



v. 



Why grasp at the wand ? what matters it now 

 That they range unalarm'd to my feet, 



And alway, as the alder-fly drops from the bough, 

 Their wandering circles repeat 1 



VI. 



Despoil'd of the sorrowless scenes of my youth, 



I may toil my past loves to forget ; 

 But Mem'ry will keep 'mid her portraits of Truth. 



The fisherman shooting his net ! 



THE herring jigger should be plumbed in the same way as 

 the hand-line ordinarily made use of, having a cross-bar of stout 

 iron wire or whalebone, from the centre of which the lead is sus- 

 pended by a piece of cord two or three feet in length. By the 

 fishermen on some parts of the Fife coast the cross-bar in hand- 

 line fishing is considered inconvenient ; one hook only is em- 

 ployed, and the plummet attached a short way above the snood 

 or tippet. 



On reaching the presumed herring-ground, the boat having 



