84 SALMON LEAPS. 



ascend. There is a river, the name of which however 

 I do not recollect, where the fish are caught by holes 

 made in the rocks at the falls, in which the fish drop, 

 having overshot the mark in their ascent. And there 

 is a tradition connected with the falls of Kilmhorach, 

 to the effect that a salmon was once boiled alive there ; 

 the fish having rushed up the fall, and thrown itself 

 by mistake into a caldron of boiling water placed 

 purposely on the ledge above. 



Traps of the above description are, I believe, common 

 enough throughout the Highlands ; and at some hotels 

 tourists are constantly regaled on fish caught in this 

 way. Of course if a salmon can rush up a fall twenty 

 feet in sheer perpendicular height, he can surmount a 

 cascade, or series of falls, considerably higher, where 

 the inequalities of the surface would aid him materially 

 in the ascent. 



But to return. After a walk of about a mile we 

 arrived at the loch. Embosomed in the hills, it lay 

 before us unruffled by the gentlest breath of wind. 

 A high cliff, rising abruptly from one bank, cast its 

 shadow nearly across the loch, whose waters seemed 

 almost inky-black from their great depth, though its 

 whole extent was not more than a quarter of a mile 

 square. At one end there were a few weeds, and less 

 depth of water. Thither therefore we bent our steps, 

 hoping to find some of the smaller fish feeding; as 

 there seemed no probability, in the present calm, of 

 the lajger bull-trout being drawn from their haunts 

 below. Three wild -duck rose from the shelter of the 

 weeds, as we were putting on our flies, and with a 

 quack of alarm, winged their way to the highest 

 reaches of the Bedburn. After wading some way into 

 the waters, so as to cast beyond the weeds, we caught 



