THE WEATHER 167 



an imperative necessity of his being, man seeks to 

 penetrate effects to the causes underlying them. He 

 demands the reason of phenomena and is unhappy till 

 he gets it — or something sufficiently resembling it to 

 satisfy his scientific curiosity. But his thirst for know- 

 ledge is sometimes easily assuaged, and hypothesis too 

 often fills the place that should be occupied by fact. 

 Mr. Hodgson assumes that the influence the east wind 

 exercises in Kinross is unlike that it exercises in Ar- 

 gyllshire, and, in support of one unwarranted assump- 

 tion, employs a second equally unreasonable. There 

 is, so far as I am aware, no evidence that the east wind 

 undergoes the change affirmed by Mr. Hodgson ; and 

 experience has convinced me that, if it promotes the 

 pleasure of the angler on Loch Leven, it is no less 

 helpful to the angler on waters nearer the Atlantic 

 coast. 



Many years ago, when tasks which now I willingly 

 evade were undertaken lightly, I visited, in the early 

 hours of a bleak June morning, a little loch set in the 

 middle of a wide plateau high up among the hills of 

 Cowal. The wind was easterly and very cold, and, to 

 add to my discomfort, rain was falling heavily. So 

 dismal was the outlook, that it seemed folly to pro- 

 ceed, and reason suggested that I should return to the 



