FEBRUARY 49 



cormorant flew to the place, like a great winged boot- 

 jack, and began poaching. Not this one, but its fellow, 

 paid the penalty of death, and in falling disgorged a 

 trout of nearly a pound in weight. 



Later on, when the smolts, or young salmon, begin 

 to descend, a sight may be witnessed which might 

 suggest misgivings to the advocates of indiscriminate 

 protection of all wild birds. Seagulls of various kinds 

 assemble on the shallow fords, and swallow thousands 

 of young fish, each of which, were it spared, would 

 return some day as a spanking twenty pounder. It 

 goes to my heart, too, to bear witness against goosanders 

 and mergansers, those birds of dainty plumage and 

 aristocratic mien; but the gillies have good cause to 

 hate the 'sawbills,' as they call them, because of the 

 many smolts which gasp their last in the serrated 

 mandibles of these active fellows. 



XXIII 



There is a humble member of the noble family of 

 Salmon which deserves more consideration than has 

 been shown it hitherto. The smelt, or, as we 

 call it in Scotland, the sparling, known in 

 France as the eperlan (Osmerus eperlanus), is usually 

 classed by fishermen among those technically known 

 as 'white fish,' in distinction from 'red fish,' a term 

 applied to salmon and trout. As a white fish, it has 

 been captured and sold for centuries, and not one of 

 the innumerable Salmon Fishery Acts affected it in the 

 slightest degree. So matters might have continued 



