50 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 



in the sun, or exchange its sultry beams for the 

 cool shadow beyond. 



" In addition to the companions of our voy- 

 age, and many others who had previously a- 

 scended with the same object to deposit their 

 spawn on the gravelly beds, so common in the 

 upper waters our pool contained a large num- 

 ber of kelts :* fish, that is, which during the 

 preceding winter and early spring had success- 

 fully deposited their spawn, and were now 

 sinking downwards by easy stages towards 

 that land, if I may use an Irishism, of plenty, 

 the sea. These kelts were the jolliest of fish ; 

 they seemed like married men escaped for a 

 short period from the cares of a family, and the 

 troubles of housekeeping. They ate minnows, 

 and parr, and the late samlets of the previous 



* I constantly observe in that excellent paper, the Field, 

 pungent gibes directed against the slayer of the kelt. In 

 the same paper, too, I occasionally observe diatribes upon 

 battue-shooting, which is likened to slaying cocks and hens 

 in a farmyard. Now, I am no friend to over-preserving, 

 and fully admit that battue-shooting maybe carried too far ; 

 but the man who can stand at a cross-ride and toss five out 

 of six rocketing pheasants dead ten yards behind him, or 

 can kill a "weel mendit" kelt in Tweed, in the month of 

 May, take my word for it, is no muff ! 



