82 ANGLING SKETCHES 



creels and fly-books is to mistake the true mean- 

 ing of the pastime. However, in this crowded 

 age men are so constituted that they like to turn 

 a contemplative exercise into a kind of Bank 

 Holiday. There is no use in arguing with such 

 persons ; the worst of their pleasure is that it 

 tends to change a Scotch loch into something like 

 the pond of the Welsh Harp, at Hendon. It is 

 always good news to read in the papers how the 

 Dundee Walton Society had a bad day, and 

 how the first prize was won by Mr. Macneesh, 

 with five trout weighing three pounds and three 

 quarters. Loch Leven, then, is crowded and 

 cockneyfied by competitions ; it has also no great 

 name for beauty of landscape. Every one to 

 his own taste in natural beauty, but in this re- 

 spect I think Loch Leven is better than its reputa- 

 tion. It is certainly more pictorial, so to speak, 

 than some remote moor lochs up near Cape 

 Wrath ; Forsinard in particular, where the scenery 

 looks like one gigantic series of brown 'baps,' 

 flat Scotch scones, all of low elevation, all pre- 

 cisely similar to each other. 



