SALMON- ANGLING. 341 



point by trolling, although we had a small skiff for the pur- 

 pose on Loch Garable. 



The Eossdhu ponds were often sadly poached by a heron. 

 Being unsuccessful in his attempts to shoot it, my brother 

 suggested to the head-keeper to try a " bogle." The effigy was 

 soon most imposingly dressed in trousers, vest, and swallow-tailed 

 coat. Next day, the inventor went to inspect his handiwork, 

 when the pirate was luxuriously perched on the bogle's head ! 



Should salmon-breeding fully succeed, it will no doubt be 

 adopted in all our first-class salmon-rivers. To stock a stream 

 originally destitute of this fish, would be a signal triumph ; 

 and some people are even sanguine enough to attempt it. I 

 rather think they are expecting too much, and that like the 

 effort of my patriotic grandfather, the late Sir John Sinclair, 

 to enliven the Caithness moors with nightingale music after 

 the first migration the fish will come back no more to a stream 

 which their previous neglect showed to be unsuitable to their 

 habits. Sir John's plan was excellent, had it only succeeded. 

 He employed London bird-fanciers to procure nightingale eggs, 

 and Caithness shepherds to find the nests of the equally soft- 

 billed robin-redbreast. The London eggs soon displaced the 

 Caithness ones, and robin carefully hatched and reared the 

 embryo melodists. In summer, numbers of young nightingales 

 were seen about the bushes, but at the autumn migration they 

 disappeared, never to return. 



Before the Tay spawning-boxes had so thoroughly proved 

 the identity of the parr and salmon, I shut up three parr in a 

 spring-well in July. The summer following, two were alive, 

 of a dark-green shade. Next April, when they cleaned out 

 the well, only one fish remained. The parr marks were still 

 apparent, but it had grown much bigger, was large-headed, 

 and very dark in colour. This last also disappeared soon 

 after. Unlike burn-trout, which soon become quite familiar, 

 and eat greedily any food thrown to them, these parr generally 

 hid at the bottom of the spring, and were very shy. 



