Salmon Fishing. 131 



spotted, some glittering like silver, and some, I 

 am free to confess, still finger-marked. A 

 Scotchman who was staying at the hotel (I think 

 I see him now) hardly deigned a remark in 

 unison with the exclamations that fell from my 

 companion and myself of unfeigned delight, as 

 we handled and admired some of these beautiful 

 fish. At length in a curt sententious sort of way 

 he exclaimed, to our intense amusement, " I am 

 come here for higher game !" 



"Higher game." Very glad was he soon 

 afterwards to receive from me a few likely- 

 looking " blues" to try and capture some of 

 the fish he had lately looked down upon with 

 such supreme contempt. 



The greatest pleasure of our new acquain- 

 tance seemed to be, not in handling a rod, but 

 in exhibiting a large material-book, filled to the 

 overflow with every description of feather, and 

 all sorts of dubbing, from which I fully ex- 

 pected a small contribution to my slender stock. 

 But no, not a fibre of the former, nor a fraction 



