10 THE SCOTTISH ANGLER. 



Loch Lomond ! Loch Awe ! Loch Laggan ! Loch 

 Ericht ! Loch Rannoch ! Loch Tay ! Loch Earn ! 

 Loch Lubnaig ! Loch Achray ! Loch Ketturin ! 

 why need we name more ? and yet hundreds there 

 are, wild and magnificent as these, which we love as 

 well, wherein all day long we have angled, with an 

 angler's hope and patience, with a poet's thoughts ex- 

 panding within us, fearless of the world's contempt, 

 and speaking of Nature as we speak not to men, but 

 guilelessly, having no distrust, and eloquently, dread- 

 ing no rebuke. St Mary's Loch, of all, is our best 

 beloved Yarrow's nurse a sheet of water, not su- 

 blime, nor yet singularly beautiful, for it wants a fringe 

 of wood and a few islets, and those swans, described 

 by Wordsworth so poetically, but strangers ever, un- 

 less in the depth of a severe winter, to its bright and 

 quiet surface ; yet, truly, there is a winning something 

 about it a " pastoral grace," that lures the angler's 

 heart. Nor does it want substance for pastime ; well 

 adapted to the nurture of trout, it is altogether a favour- 

 ite resort. Yet the fish caught therein, if we except 

 one variety, are in general soft arid flabby, not agree- 

 able to the taste, and very far from equalling those 

 found in the Highland lochs or in Loch Leven. The 

 fact is, its very fitness is the cause of its being over- 

 stocked. There are in the neighbourhood too many 

 breeding streams, and the outlet by which the young 

 fry would naturally descend, being difficult to discover, 

 they are compelled in great shoals to remain in the 

 loch, until directed in their escape by some heavy flood, 

 which is felt throughout the whole mass of waters. 

 Salmon also, and sea trout, which find their way up in 

 winter, are, owing to the same circumstance, necessi- 

 tated to spend the summer months in this prison. We 

 have taken them with a trout fly in June, seemingly 



