24 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 



wondrous race lays, on an average, eight thou- 

 sand eggs ! And, so long as we have only our 

 natural enemies to contend with, the rivers we 

 affect will be stocked to repletion in spite of all 

 the schoolboys birched betwixt Peebles and 

 Berwick." 



CHAPTER V. 



The goal is reached. The " Treasures of the Deep." I 

 become surfeited with pleasure, and long to re-visit the 

 scenes of my youth. 



" Yog think then, sir," said I, " that the 

 water-bailiffs are useless ? " 



"By no means," said he, in a more argu- 

 mentative and less dictatorial tone than he had 

 hitherto used ; " but they should be supple- 

 mental to, and not in the place of, the ' fisher- 

 men ' or private keepers. These men know 

 every pool, and rock, and haunt of a fish, 

 spawning or otherwise, on their respective 

 waters. They are directly interested in the 

 increase of the fish, and they generally know 

 and are not connected with the poachers. Yet 

 on a certain day, as a rule, the keepers, one or 



