THE GENTLE SHEPHEBD. 21 



tomed to this artificial lake, lived, throve, and reproduced their 

 kind. I do not believe a word of all this. The same statement had 

 been made many years ago by a most scientific man (the late 

 Dr. Maculloch), of a lake in the Isle of Lismore. I fear that he 

 took the statement on hearsay. Near Guisborough, in the North 

 Hiding of Yorkshire, there is a small stream or burn, which 

 drains the valley of Guisborough. Sea trout enter this from the 

 sea in considerable numbers, and the} 7 " breed in the rivulet. In 

 due time, in April, or the beginning of May, the gamekeeper 

 takes with a net a good many dozen of the fry, silvery and 

 shining like salmon, transferring them alive to a large collection 

 of fresh water ; or artificial lake, as it were. In this, the fry, 

 so transported, live very well for a year or two ; but, from that 

 time fall off, becoming long, lanky, black, diseased, and wholly 

 unfit for food. Now, my information is not from hearsay, for I 

 was present on one occasion at the . transfer of the fry to the 

 pond. Why one result should happen in Yorkshire and another 

 so different in the regervoir of Glencorse, I leave to be reconciled 

 by those who say that they have caught sea trout in that 

 reservoir, which I never did. 



Man's handiwork in this lone valley has spoiled a natural 

 glen of great beauty, desecrating ground almost classical. For 

 here Allan Ramsay laid the scene of the "Gentle Shepherd." 

 Allan Kamsay, of whom the noble Burns sang and wrote 



" The tooth of time may gnaw Tantallan, 

 But thou'rt for ever." 



Many years afterwards I fished the stream below the reservoir 

 on a hot summer day ; there still were trout to be taken. What 

 surprised me was their want of strength whilst on the line. 

 Did this arise from their being cut off from their native sources ? 

 Who can say ? Man creates nothing, he simply destroys. Man 

 is a great destroyer, but not the sole. Other unseen agencies 

 are at work, sweeping the earth of its living inhabitants. Saunter- 

 ing homewards one evening by the southern slope of the Pent- 

 land, these were my reflections. 



" Soft falls the eve on Woodhouselee. " 

 The wooded banks of the Esk sweep far away to the east ; but 



