TWEEDSIDE. 79 



waters, and hounded off any one who dared 

 approach them, all kinds of gins and hair nets, 

 for their capture, came into use. A real fisher, 

 for the love of the thing, is just as scarce as the 

 real poet ; but if you set man-traps and spring 

 guns, and issue laws against it, the effect will be 

 to make many men fish who never otherwise 

 would have done so, just out of contradiction, 

 and from a certain excitement which this very 

 thing produces. If the waters were all open, in 

 my opinion, there would be fewer fishers ; and if 

 there were more inclined to it, the fish would 

 still be as plentiful, and, doubtless, more so, as 

 each true angler would be partly and individually 

 interested in their preservation. The Tweed, as 

 I have said, being free to trout fishers, it may be 

 a question, Avhether this is not really in the 

 favour of its being a salmon river, as we all 

 know, large trout devour a great deal of the 

 spawn and the small fry, small did I say, I 

 have often killed them just gorged with par and 

 smolts often three and four inches long. In 

 this state they are often very fond of taking the 

 fly, probably by way of dram. Sometimes in 

 going out to the river, although you may have 

 seen fish the evening before, rising in the 



