CLEAR WATERS 



for some other streams of the Eastern March, en- 

 dowed with the same amazingly recuperative powers, 

 such, for example, as the Blackadder and the Leader. 

 Whether we have any rivers in Yorkshire, Wales, or 

 Devonshire that would stand this treatment it would 

 be extremely interesting to know, though futile to 

 inquire. For neither is any opportunity for comparison 

 afforded, nor is anywhere to be found such a fishing 

 population among the humbler classes. But if these 

 Border rivers have in truth any such exceptionally 

 productive qualities, there is absolutely nothing in 

 their appearance to distinguish them from scores of 

 similar ones south of the Tweed. They have their 

 duplicates by the dozen in other hill and mountain 

 regions. There is nothing in either the wild moor- 

 lands of Berwickshire or in its cultivated lowlands to 

 suggest greater fecundity in its trout streams than in 

 the moors and lowlands of Yorkshire, Montgomery, 

 or Cardigan. What, then, can it be, and is all our 

 rather strict and almost timid preservation of rapid 

 waters against fair fishing just so much moonshine ? 

 I have maintained in a former chapter that a good deal 

 of it is. But the Whiteadder, the Blackadder, and 

 the Leader confound me utterly, knowing intimately, 

 as I do, the tremendous toll that is annually levied on 

 them, not merely with fly, but with bait of every 

 description. 



My first acquaintance with the Whiteadder was 

 made on leaving college, now, alas ! over forty years 

 ago, and the study of agriculture from the vantage- 

 point of a famous East Lothian farm was the indirect 

 cause of introduction.' I had never before been north 



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