122 FISH AND FISHING IN SCOTLAND. 



cause, excepting it be the rocky nature of the banks, few or no 

 trout are to be seen ; they cease as by a miracle near the first slaty 

 scarbrae, where, bending suddenly eastward, the river enters this 

 rocky slaty country ; and although it leaves it after a few miles, 

 a short way above Allantown, the river from this to its junc- 

 tion with Tweed has ceased to be that noble trouting-stream 

 which we have seen it is, from the Whitwell to Chirnside 

 Bridge. 



Salmon and salmon-trout are occasionally taken in these deep 

 streams and pools of the slaty district, but I never caught any 

 trout there. The angler now reaches Allanton, a village situated 

 at the conflux of the Blackadder and Whit adder. He has his 

 choice of both : but the banks of the Blackadder are, for miles 

 upwards, deeply wooded, enclosed, and preserved, and there is no 

 angling without permission. Salmon never ascend the Black- 

 adder : the cause of this is quite unknown. It is with them, I 

 presume, as with other animals which frequent certain regions 

 in preference to others, guided by an instinct which never errs. 

 In this way Nature limits, no doubt, her extension of animals 

 indifferently. Thus I question if the salmon could by any means 

 be transplanted to the Blackadder, so as to breed there and 

 annually return. But it would be interesting to test this by 

 placing a few beds of fecundated roe in the streams of this river, 

 near its source ; then watching the progress of the fry down the 

 stream, on their way to the ocean. Should they return to their 

 native streams the streams in which they first saw the light 

 the Blackadder would then become a salmon river : but this I 

 doubt, for they would not return. 



The angler will find in Allanton all he requires ; but it is 

 right to caution him, that from this to the mouth of the river 

 I have always found it to be very poor angling. Mills follow 

 mills, dam-heads dam-heads. The river, deeply sunk in its bed, 

 has thickly-wooded banks, that are very beautiful to look at, but 

 greatly embarrass the angler. What the angler might do at par- 

 ticular seasons of the year in these streams, I am not prepared to 

 say. I fished it frequently, and twice at least in the company 

 of first-rate anglers, with fly and minnow, parr-tail and worm, 

 but we caught nothing, or next to nothing. Others may have 



