TWEEDSIDE. 83 



time, and seldom rise to the fly greedily. I 

 have seen a fish rise to the fly, and though often 

 changed on him, say five or six times, yet never 

 take it to HIS LIPS. Need we wonder, then, 

 at the rake and leister modes of taking him 

 in the ' back end.' In fact, in the vicinity of 

 manufacturing places and tanneries, where lime 

 is used, 1 I am afraid all fishing will soon be 

 put an end to. What with sending down all 

 kinds of dying matters, such is the filth below 

 Galashiels, for instance, and the common sewers 

 of every town on the banks, going on increasing, 

 [see what has been already said on this subject 

 at page 8.], anything like good fishing will 

 shortly not be had, unless far away in the North, 

 and it is now not an uncommon thing to see 

 gentlemen who go to Norway and even Iceland 

 for their favourite sport of salmon fishing. The 

 Tweed, where I now am, runs smaller than it did 

 twenty-five years ago. Drainage, of course, is 

 mainly the cause of this; it also gets lower in the 



1 The destructiveness of lime is very great. When the 

 new bridge of Ashiestiel was first begun, a great part of 

 it fell, and such was the destruction of fish in consequence 

 of the lime, that the country folks gathered the fish up 

 at the sides of the river in TUB-FULLS. 



