304 CHEVIOT BECKS. 



pounds taken out of it. At Heathpool Linns three deep 

 oval pools hemmed in on each side by perpendicular walls 

 of rock thirty or forty feet high, and into which the waters 

 rush over a low fall of five feet there are numbers of 

 fine trout, but they cannot be approached without wading. 



An eccentric sportsman, the late J. B n of facetious 



memory, used to be in the habit of fishing those pools 

 from the back of a donkey, using his hat as a landing- 

 net, with holes cut in the crown to let the water escape. 

 It is quite in vain for the angler to direct his steps 

 to the College, unless it is after a fall of rain, as it is too 

 scant of water in dry weather to afford any chance of sport 

 with the fly. But the worm is here, as in most moorland 

 streams, at all times a deadly bait, and may even be used 

 with success when the water is very low by introducing 

 it adroitly among the stones with a long rod. I have 

 often found the gray gnat a very killing fly on this water 

 in summer. 



THE CHEVIOT BECKS. 



Several small burns or " becks" (as they are called 

 in the district) that empty themselves into the College, 

 after meandering through the glens of the Cheviots on 

 the English side, contain astonishing quantities of 

 trout, especially towards the autumn when they run up 

 to spawn ; and after a flood at this season, it is no un- 

 common occurrence for a single rod to capture sixteen 

 or eighteen dozen with worm in a single day in these 

 rivulets. But in dry weather they are mere rills, and of 

 no use to the angler whatever ; unless he adopts the 



