32 FISH AND FISHING IN SCOTLAND. 



useful thing, even although it be not power. For want of a 

 little natural history knowledge, I have seen some ludicrous 

 mistakes made, by no means pleasant for those who made 

 them. A young friend, a navy surgeon, told me, that being at 

 sea, the men caught a shark whose stomach was full of the bills 

 or mandibles of parrots and cockatoos ! I showed him the 

 mandibles of the cuttle-fish. He was confounded ; he had never 

 examined the cuttle-fish, and was not aware of the strong 

 resemblance existing between the bills of the parrot and the 

 beak of the cuttle-fish. Again, on seeing vast herds of antelopes 

 grazing on the wide extended plains of Southern Africa, a poor 

 fellow of an assistant surgeon had the misfortune to ask a 

 brother officer if these animals preyed on each other! His 

 character, even as a medical man, fell to zero. Lastly, Mr. T., 

 a clever man, a lieutenant in a crack regiment of infantry, and 

 who ought to have been a captain, for he was the second to 

 reach the top of the wall at the siege of St. Sebastian, shot a 

 bird which the soldiers called a bustard. They had confounded 

 bustard with buzzard, and the filthy brute he had shot (in 

 reality a vulture) gave to him and his horse so bad an odour, as 

 he rode with it into the camp on the banks of the Great Fish 

 River, that for many hours they were both put in quarantine. 

 Knowledge is a good thing, especially when practical. 



A FEW DAYS' FISHING ON THE TTNE. 



I select from my memoranda the results of a day's fishing on 

 the Tyne ; one of many passed on the banks of that pleasant 

 stream. 



The day was the 4th of September, warm, sunny, and beau- 

 tiful ; but the river was low, and boded no great sport. Yet the 

 trout rose in great abundance notwithstanding. We commenced 

 atHailes Castle, and by 1 P.M. had reached East Linton, having 

 taken one dozen-and-a-half trout. In the afternoon, having ob- 

 tained permission, we fished from the bridge at Tinningham until 

 opposite Lord Haddington's house. The tide had begun to 

 flow, and, in addition to some small common trout, I had the 

 pleasure of taking with common trout fly, of rather a small size. 



