28 FISH AND FISHING IN SCOTLAND. 



but still I know that the food of this trout is peculiar, and in 

 the great number I have examined to decide this point in their 

 natural history nothing was ever found in their stomachs but the 

 shrimp I have mentioned. 



This " trout of the estuary," I afterwards found in the Nith 

 similarly located, i.e., in " the waters into which the tide ebbs 

 and flows ;" waters which clearly to define has defied the 

 legal knowledge of the three kingdoms ; nay, baffled science 

 itself, for no scientific man has yet been able to define the mouth 

 of a river, which pours its waters directly into the sea. 



I have been assured that occasionally a dark-spotted trout, 

 of excellent flavour, and strongly resembling the Leven trout, 

 is caught in the lower waters of the Tyne, below the falls and 

 dam of Linton ; and it has been conjectured, with some show of 

 probability, that these trout may have left Prestmannan Lake, 

 and found their way by the sea into the mouth of the Tyne. 

 The theory is ingenious enough, but objections might be raised 

 to it. Prestmannan Lake is a small artificial pool of fresh 

 water, into which the late Mr. Kobert Fergusson, of Raith, 

 transferred many dozens of the trout from Loch Leven. Of 

 this interesting experiment, I shall speak in the chapter on Loch 

 Leven. 



Tyne Mouth is wild and lonely ; a vast sandy bay, abounding 

 in quicksands, extends for several miles. By this the traveller, 

 at low tide, may reach Dunbar ; but it behoves him to be 

 cautious, and not linger on the sands, nor attempt them alone. 

 They abound in quicksands, in which man and horse have been 

 engulfed. Over these sands the sea rolls fearfully in north- 

 easterly gales, and on them, I think, was cast away, during the 

 last century, the Fox man of war. Beyond these is Dunbar, 

 no angling station, but worth a visit, were it only to look at 

 Down Hill, where Cromwell's Ironsides cut to pieces the flower 

 of the Scottish army ; where the Mucklewraths did for their 

 friends what they afterwards repeated at Both well Bridge. In 

 fanaticism the two hosts were probably equal; they differed 

 only in discipline. Providence favoured the disciplinarian. 



