ANGLING REMINISCENCES. 179 



Otter. I had as lief, Doctor, thou hadst left thy 

 stave unsung ; it hath troubled the strings of my 

 affections Ah ! I shall never visit Yarrow any 

 more, not because its breed of yellow-fins is now ex- 

 tinct and well might they be so for the waters of 

 that stream have been harrowed without mercy, 

 sifted and ransacked by every species of ingenuity, 

 down from Douglas-burn-foot to the bridge at Broad- 

 meadows, and farther perhaps ; but farther we never 

 angled, although often, from Newark Tower to that 

 of the wizard Sir Michael Scott at Oakwood, have 

 we trodden, along the birchen braes of the silvery 

 river. Its yellow-fins are indeed departed! the 

 huge, thick-shaped, golden-flanked fellows, that were 

 wont to be caught in the May month, during glints 

 of the sun on a warm rainy morning. They loved 

 best theclear, shining minnow, or sometimes ayellow- 

 bodied fly, with a rough red hackle twisted round it; 

 but of these, the minnow was the more captivating 

 lure ; it brought out the daintiest fish from their re- 

 treats, and spun so enchantingly down the primest 

 streams that, troutless as one knew many of these to 

 be, there was still a delight, difficult to forego, in 

 playing among them its tiny form. The Yarrow 

 yellow-fins were ever famous, and an unfrequent 

 specimen may to this day be taken, but only one, 

 out of some scores of gray, lean, loch trout, or of 

 the big-bellied variety found in Tweed. It was, in 

 truth, a lovely fish, ornate with a rare sprinkling 

 of stars, darker than crimson, and these on a light 



