66 MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS 



apparently the reverse of this, which might at first 

 sight have posed a fishing philosopher to account 

 for. In a heavy late autumn flood, in the second 

 week of October, a run of large grey sckule fish came 

 up, literally stocking the river, while yet running black 

 and full. For three or four days they seemed all 

 keeping near to the surface, tumbling up everywhere 

 incessantly, to near the very bordering grass, and 

 seizing at sight any large fly you might throw in ; but 

 yet [being] on the run upward, they would not settle 

 till the water should fall low. This does not fully ac- 

 count for the whole phenomenon, as more were still 

 moving on from the sea, till in a few days they became 

 sobered down and would not rise to a fly ; but when 

 the water had fallen to a mean fishing size, they fell 

 to be fished for in the ordinary way. We may ob- 

 serve that if our parson's bright yellow fly which he 

 names from his own profession, The Parson is his 

 studied imitation of a shrimp, copied from the type 

 (and we say the salmon take it for a shrimp), then 

 what do the salmon take other flies for ? certainly, 

 as well all for shrimps black, blue, brown, and dun 

 as well as yellow. This holds at all points to our 

 purpose, in proof that it is the shrimp that salmon 

 flies of all colours are taken for. The bright golden 

 flies of the Earn, and the darker flies of the Tweed, 



