ANGLING IN ENGLAND. 3 



Our party in the meantime tried boldly for trout, but were un- 

 successful ; nevertheless, it is certain that occasionally some fine 

 trout are caught here, for the rivers of Hampshire are noted for 

 the excellence, if not abundance, of their trout and salmon. 



An esteemed friend, Gr , of the Guards, a Saxon and an 



Englishman, assures me that English anglers must not be 

 despised. They fish "underhand," that is the phrase, and take 

 many Irace of trout, where the overhand northern could take 

 nothing. Very likely they know the temper of their own fish, and 

 the character of their becks and rivers ; the taste and habit of the 

 fish of their own country. And in one respect they have the ad- 

 vantage greatly over most of the northern anglers ; the fish they 

 take, especially in the south of England, are as excellent as those 

 of Scotland are generally worthless. The red-spotted river trout 

 of England, frequenting the fresh water only, is, generally speak- 

 ing, a much finer fish than the species usually met with in the 

 Scottish rivers. The northern is a coarser fish, tasteless, colour- 

 less, or nearly so, in its muscle or flesh ; the trout of the south 

 of England is a handsomer trout, with pink-coloured flesh, and 

 excellent to eat. This does not depend on the food, but mainly 

 on their being specifically distinct. Nevertheless, the pink or 

 pale salmon-coloured trout is also to be met with in many streams 

 of Scotland ; in the Tyne, the water of Leith, the Eden, as I 

 shall afterwards show ; whilst, no doubt, the coarser or Scottish 

 kind is to be also met with in some parts of England, especially 

 in the north. I have always heard that the trout of the Coquet 

 are as worthless as those of the Tweed and its tributaries. [But 

 to return. A sumptuous dinner and choice wines awaited our 

 return to the house of our host ; the carriage was ordered about 

 ten, and so we reached home without other fatigiie than that of 

 sitting three or four hours over our dinner and wine. 



As I stood on the banks watching the movements of the 

 Vicar, for such he was at the least, on the other side, and of my 

 more active friends on this, I said to myself, "this no more 

 resembles true angling than does yonder swelling upland with 

 its patches of heath the desolate and lonely glens of the Lam- 

 mermuir ; the muddy stream before me, the silver, crystal Tweed; 

 the air I breathe, stagnating over these fat meadows, the honey- 



B2 



