220 ANGLING REMINISCENCES. 



had, upon more than one occasion, to hold ourselves 

 satisfied with an empty pannier. The grandeur of 

 the scenes, however, among which our wanderings 

 introduced us, amply compensated for the want of 

 success occasionally encountered. 



[Here Mr Wandle-weir digressed into an eulogium on 

 various natural beauties discovered to him during the 

 course of the above excursions, after which he 

 amused the club with an account of the piscatory 

 raid undertaken by him and his friend Herl-broke 

 into Ross-shire. We have no design, however, of fol- 

 lowing our worthy brother-anglers along this portion 

 of their tour, having already, in a previous chapter, 

 entered somewhat at large into an analysis of the 

 various waters belonging to the several districts which 

 they visited. We shall only confine our observations, 

 in regard to the country alluded to, within the limits 

 of a single interrogatory, addressed by our intelligent 

 narrator to the members of the club. The purport 

 of Mr Wandle-weir's inquiry was as to the reason- 

 ableness of a statement he had seen repeatedly ad- 

 vanced among northern journalists, whereby it was 

 made to appear that an alarming decrease had of late 

 years taken place in the quantity both of salmon and 

 trout frequenting such streams as discharge them- 

 selves along the Western coasts of Scotland, and, 

 moreover, that this decrease was owing solely to the 

 recent introduction of sheep into those pasture- 

 grounds which border on the waters in question.] 



May. What! Mr Wandle-weir, sheep devour 

 salmon! They say, 'tis true, goats will bolt vipers, 



