136 FISHING WITH MINNOW 



things are lawful for him, but all things are not expe- 

 dient. Time was when he who persisted in whistling 

 on the Sabbath in Scotland assuredly would have been 

 brought in collision with the law, which in that fair 

 land is called the Shirra ; and to this day there remain 

 plenty of occasions for stumbling into the presence of that 

 omnipresent functionary. But the Shirra has no terrors 

 for minnow-fishers ; so minnow-fishing, however inex- 

 pedient, must be reckoned among things that are lawful. 



There are times for minnow-fishing, too, as there are 

 times for other melancholy or inglorious occupations ; 

 for there are trout in Scotland so lost to all refined 

 feeling, that the March brown and heckumpeckum stir 

 no appetite in their weighty carcases, and the Zulu and 

 red-and-teal may be trailed never so cunningly over 

 their haunts without producing so much as the twinkle 

 of a fin. To such fish hostes piscarice gentis approach 

 must be had in the only way suited to their gross palates, 

 and Acheron must be moved to avert a blank day. 



Let no one who has control over a sheet of water 

 where trout behave like creatures of gentle breeding 

 permit the use of the minnow under any pretext what- 

 ever. Loch Leven is such a sheet of water, its trout 

 being models of behaviour as well as symmetry. Few 

 other waters contain fish of such free rising propensity, 

 combined with goodly size, and none are more per- 

 petually flogged. Yet there are ' dour ' days on Loch 

 Leven as well as on lochs of less repute ; days on which, 

 in the language of the Stock Exchange, it might be 

 reported that ' a general dull tone, difficult to account 



