BRITISH SPORT PAST AND PRESENT 



three fish move at the fly in the course of the drift, but none 

 of them are hooked, as it is really impossible to keep the line 

 properly straight and strike in a workmanlike manner. It 

 is but an easterly squall, and falls as rapidly as it rises ; and, 

 when a toiling and laborious pull up-wind has got us nearly 

 back to the far end of the loch, all is calm once more, and rock, 

 hill, and reed are reflected double in the glassy surface. The 

 basket at the end of the day contains only thirteen trout, and 

 although there are one or two big ones, the average weight 

 of the whole cannot be more than a quarter of a pound — a bad 

 day both in number and size. At this time of the year I ought 

 to be sure of a couple of dozen in an afternoon of about three 

 to the pound. I have not changed my flies much, as the 

 rising fish have seemed contented with what was offered them 

 — a teal and green, a zulu and an alder. My cast was a very 

 fine one, and when for a short time I tried burn-trout flies 

 of the smallest size on drawn gut, I did not meet with suffi- 

 cient success to encourage me to persist in the experiment. 

 I also condescended to a minnow for a short time while I en- 

 joyed my after-luncheon pipe, but not a touch rewarded the 

 poaching expedient. Altogether the pleasure of the day con- 

 sisted rather in the delicious air, the beautiful landscape, 

 and the life and music around me, than in the moderate sport 

 enjoyed. All day the birds have been busy and noisy, and I 

 have noted fourteen varieties — herring-gull, kittiwake, heron, 

 curlew, lapwing, sandpiper, duck, coot, moorhen, blackcock, 

 grouse, rook, jackdaw, and cuckoo, without counting the 

 smaller birds, such as swallows, martins, pipits, and warbler, 

 the latter of which I find it difficult to identify with certainty 

 at any distance. 



' I do not, of course, record the above day's sport as a 

 typical or satisfactory sample of the pleasures of loch-fishing. 

 I have had many days in various spots where the basket has 

 been heavy at the end of the day, and fish up to two pounds, 

 with an occasional monster even larger, have rewarded my 

 exertions. But just as marmalade has been described as " an 



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