1 20 ANGLING. 



lie quietly and then pull your fly up very leisurely, 

 and usually a roach will follow your bait to the very 

 top of the water, and gaze on it there, and run at 

 it, and take it, lest the fly should fly away from 

 him."* Vast shoals of this species ascend the 

 streams in the parish of Killearn, from Loch Lo- 

 mond, and are caught by nets in thousands. Their 

 emigration from the loch, however, continues only 

 for the space of three or four days towards the end 

 of May.-f 



It has been remarked by anglers, that while 

 these fish continue in the streams, and for a week 

 after their departure, scarcely can a trout be taken 

 either with minnow, worm, or fly, in consequence 

 of that species being gorged with the roaches 1 

 spawn. Donovan supposes that roach come up in 

 large shoals from the sea to deposit their ova, while 

 Montagu expresses his belief that they cannot exist 

 in sea-water at all. Dr. Parnell remarks, that al- 

 though the sea is certainly not the natural abode of 

 the roach, yet it is sometimes found there, being 

 carried down from lakes or rivers after high floods. 

 " In the Solway Firth, I saw in the month of June, 

 five examples taken in the salmon-nets ; and I was 

 informed by the fisherman there, that in the early 

 part of the season they frequently captured them 

 after a flood." J Montagu founds his opinion upon 

 the following fact. A certain small river runs into 

 a large piece of water close to the sea, on the south 



* Complete Angler, p. 218. 



-\- Statistical Account of Scotland, vol xvi. p. 100. 



J Fishes of the Firth of Forth, p. 108. 



