THE FINDHORN 279 



No. 2. Tag, silver twist and gold coloured floss ; tail, a 

 topping, ; butt, black ostrich herl ; body, two turns of gold- 

 coloured floss, half yellow and half black mohair ; hackle, 

 black (over the black mohair only), at the shoulder darkish 

 blue (sparely) with blue jay over it ; wing, a couple of strips 

 of tippet, gold pheasant tail, brown mallard, gallina, yellow, 

 red, and orange sprigs, a topping over all, and blue macaw 

 ribs ; black head. 



No. 3. Tail, a topping and mallard ; body, medium blue ; 

 ditto., hackle ; gold tinsel ; gallina hackle at shoulder, blue 

 jay over it ;* wings, strips of bustard, dark and light turkey, 

 and some peacock herls, and a topping over all. Flies, 5 and 6 

 for spring, 7 and 8 for summer. 



THE FINDHORN 



The Findhorn is a very fine and lovely river, and the pools 

 and streams perfection. At one time there was no river in 

 Scotland that gave such sport to the rod, but nets near the 

 mouth, and incessant netting of the lower pools thin the fish, 

 and injure the sport greatly. 



It can be fished from the shore, but some of the casts require 

 deepish wading. It is a long river, with mountainous sources, 

 and heavy rains may be going on back in the mountains, 

 which the angler has no idea of, and the river will come down 

 sometimes suddenly with a bore or a wave six feet high. The 

 banks are high and rocky, and often inaccessible, and woe be 

 to the angler if he is caught between them. The late Sir A. P. 

 Gordon Gumming showed me one spot where he had had a very 

 narrow escape. He had walked across a part of the river bed 

 over which a little stream ran not higher than his ankles, to a 

 cast about one hundred yards up the river. He was fishing 

 the cast,^when suddenly he fancied the water was thickening 

 in colour. It was a brilliant day, without a sign of rain. He 

 looked over his shoulder up the river, and about one hundred 

 and fifty or two hundred yards off he saw a big red wave, about 

 five or six feet high, coming down like a race horse : not a 

 moment was to be lost, and he bolted for the landing-place as 

 hard as his legs would carry him, and he only just reached it, 

 for the little stream, which was not over his ankles five minutes 

 before, was up to his waist before he got out of it, and in another 

 half -minute an elephant would have been carried away in it. 

 I was nearly caught once in the same way on the upper part 



