APRIL 73 



meeting to sup together, having resolved itself into an 

 annual dinner. At one of these dinners in 1867 the 

 verses printed below were sung or recited by the com- 

 poser, the late Sir Douglas Maclagan, Professor of 

 Medical Jurisprudence in the University of Edin- 

 burgh, and I venture to offer them, as Izaak Walton 

 did his craftily cooked pike, as being 'tbo good for 

 any but anglers or very honest men/ for they are not 

 bad lines to have running in one's head when he goes 

 a-fishing. 



SAUMON 

 TUNE There's cauld kail in Aberdeen. 



There's baddies in the Firth o' Forth, 

 There 's turbot great and sma', man ; 

 There's flukes, but they're but little worth, 

 There 's caller ou' l and a', man. 

 But fish in shell or fish in scale, 

 Whate 'er ye like 't to ca', man, 

 There 's nane can doot the very wale 2 

 O' fishes is the saumon. 



There's herrin' catcht aboot Dunbar, 

 And whitin's aff Skateraw, man ; 

 But wha sae daft as would compare 

 The like o' them wi' saumon ? 

 The English folk like whitin's best, 

 The Dutch eat herrin's raw, man ; 

 But ilka body to his taste, 

 And mine 's content wi' saumon. 



Royal and Ancient St. Andrews Golf Club, founded in 1754, are all of 

 higher antiquity than the ^Esculapian, but their purpose, of course, 

 was not primarily convivial. 



1 Caller ou', fresh oysters, the musical cry of Musselburgh fishwives. 

 ' Caller herrin', caller ou',' is not heard so often as of yore in the 

 streets of Edinburgh. 



2 The very wale, that is, the choicest the pick o' the basket. 



