146 AUTUMNS IN ARGYLESHIRE 



receiving his quietus with a stone. Soon the 

 fly is cut out, and the sport is resumed. 



I am not going to weary the reader with a 

 description of an entire day's fishing. Catching 

 one fish, on paper, is very like catching another, 

 although there is an infinite variety in reality. 

 Often have I spent the greater part of the 

 day by the Irishman's pool alone, small as it is, 

 and I have taken out of it as many as five 

 salmon, besides losing others. If one of my 

 captures has been disagreeably restive, I have 

 gone to the pool above for a short time, or I 

 have indulged in lunch or a pipe ; but it is 

 wonderful how soon salmon, or other fish, seem 

 to forget the misfortunes of their friends. " Call 

 that a pool ! " said a friend who was introduced 

 to the Irishman's pool for the first time, after 

 some experience of Tay and Tweed. " Why, 

 it is no bigger than a washing-basin." Yet 

 have I, horresco referens, seen more than a 

 hundred salmon taken out of it with one haul 

 of the net, when low water, and the need of 

 removing temptation from the poachers, com- 

 pelled the use of that atrocious implement. The 

 " Irishman " is not an easy pool to net by night, 

 but there are places where salmon get shut in, 

 in low water, where they can, and do occasion- 

 ally, fall victims to every description of imple- 

 ment. A sharp knife at the end of a stick, 

 giving a quick slash at their tails ; a hay-fork ; 



