96 A Sportsman at Large 



" Aw, there is that, yer 'anner ! Faith, whin the divils 

 shpring up lamenting an' twist about in orl directions, uts 

 loike to be pickin' wan another's oyes out they be uts that 

 thick they are." 



This was encouraging, but I was still bent on exactitude. 



" Are there any hippopotamuses in the river, Michael ? " 

 I asked casually. 



The jarvey-keeper looked at me out of the corner of his 

 eyes, somewhat suspiciously I thought ; but after a pause he 

 answered, and made reply, laconically : 



" Sometoimes ! be noight ! " 



Is the foregoing dialogue authentic, you will ask ? 



On the word of an angler, which as everyone knows is 



Well, if you have any doubts you must blame my distinguished 

 collaborator, Ben Trovato. . . . 



" But what has this to do with your first salmon ? " you 

 will be wondering. 



I had lost no time in going for the sea trout in Furnace 

 Lough, and when conditions were favourable had gathered a 

 goodly toll of the game and succulent fish. By way of variety, 

 I thought I would try the Glenderhawk, which hitherto had 

 been unfishable, owing to a lack of water ; but now a good 

 downpour over night had put the stream in ply. It is a narrow 

 piece of water, but at intervals there are deep pools between 

 steep, peaty banks. These look still and dour, but at times 

 hold big sea trout and occasionally a salmon. I had creeled 

 two-and-a-half brace of sizeable trout (the biggest nearly 

 two pounds in weight), when on casting over one of these 

 " moss-holes " there was a big boil at my " zulu." Instinc- 

 tively I knew that this was something superior to a sea trout, 

 and my heart leapt. Luckily the fish, whatever it was, was 

 not pricked. Remembering what I had been told anent its 

 being advisable to give ten minutes law to a salmon that has 

 risen and retired untouched, before casting over him again, 

 I sat me down on a tuft of heather, all of a tremor. Now 

 had I known as much of the manners and customs of the 

 normal salmon as I do now I should, then and there, have 

 shown this joker the zulu again ; but at that time I imagined 

 that such a fish could be caught only with a salmon fly of 



