98 MOUNTAIN TARNS. 



A chain of lochans, about eight miles over the hills, is 

 well worth the fly-fisher's attention. I climbed to them, one 

 balmy day, with my fly-trouting rod, and a few casts round 

 my hat. The scenery from the tops of the hills did not much 

 hit my fancy, although the views of Loch Fine and the 

 opposite glens no doubt are pleasing. It was a long dreary 

 walk, with few objects of interest to shorten it, except the 

 instinctive wiles of a moss-cheeper (meadow-pipit) and a 

 sparrow-hawk to decoy me from their respective nests. The 

 pipit really deceived me at first, so completely did it sham 

 a broken leg and wing. As for the little hawk, although I 

 marked the very spot she rose from, all my ingenuity could 

 not discover her young. She flew about, appearing quite 

 unconcerned so long as I kept near this place ; but when I 

 walked away, she always pitched down, making a great fuss, 

 as much as to say, " Keep off my nest : here it is" giving 

 me a false direction as plainly as a bird could speak. 



The first lochan of the chain, named Camisdown, lies 

 much lower than the others, and is a good deal the largest. 

 Some of the trout in it are eight or ten pounds' weight. I 

 only got one rise, and secured a fish of about a pound. 

 There are few days in the year that they rise well in this 

 loch, and bait is more acceptable than fly. The other 

 little tarns are upon the tops of the hills. Two of them 

 contain no fish, and look as if they were dead, when con- 

 trasted with the others all alive from the continual rising 

 of trout. In a few hours I filled my creel, (a pretty large 

 one), and might easily have stocked it again, as the day 

 was good for the fly, and the fish keen. 



