SALT-WATER LOCHS. 79 



Hand-line fishing may be followed at any time, but is 

 best at the flow of the tide. As the water retires, shift 

 your position further down the loch, and vice versa. 

 Almost every cottage on the banks can supply a hand- 

 line, and every inmate knows how to use it. 



THE WHITE FEATHER. 



To some highly facetious authors, a pun upon the 

 white feather might prove a prize, so I shall make them 

 a present of it instead of my readers, and proceed to its 

 dressing and use. Of all apologies for a fly, this is the 

 clumsiest ; it is only a swan's or goose's feather tied round 

 a large and very coarse bait-hook, without the least pre- 

 tence to art ; any man who had never dressed a fly in his 

 life, would be as successful in the attempt as the most 

 finished performer.* The rod and line are in perfect 

 keeping with the fly ; a bamboo cane, or young hazel 

 tree, with ten or twelve yards of oiled cord, and a length 



* Worsted is occasionally used instead of the feather, and it is 

 sometimes a killing way to have a different colour for each rod viz. 

 white for one, yellow for another, and red for a third. This last is best 

 for mackerel; and in some states of the water and sky, both lythe and 

 seithe, especially the former, prefer the yellow to the white. It is a 

 curious fact regarding the seithe, that when it grows old it changes 

 both its nature and appearance ; the colour is nearly black instead of 

 the rich green ; it grows to a great size, and gains a formidable set of 

 teeth. It is then called a stanlock, or black salmon, and is quite as 

 destructive to other fish as the conger-eel. In this stage it is never 

 known to rise to the fly, but it is occasionally taken by the hand or 

 long-line. 



