284 FISHING GOSSIP. 
season of the year, the trout, under the operation of 
heat and light, are accustomed to feed—scaring to the 
right and left the realities in the shape of pounders 
and two-pounders of your visionary expectations. 
It cannot be helped, however, for there is no reason- 
ing with mar-sports of this sort, who have been 
tutored to look upon the artificial fly as the only 
legitimate means of capturing trout ; and so, on some 
of the English rivers, no doubt, it is very properly 
regarded ; but Tweed is different, and will bear, as 
an important salmon-stream, to be treated under a 
line of policy, in respect to its fresh-water trout, much 
less conservative. 
Directly over the Burn Stream, on the south bank 
of the river tower the Braeheads, the descent from 
which is steep and hazardous, but partakes more of 
the nature of a scaur, being composed of loose, shifty 
earth and gravel, than of a precipice. Further up 
Tweed, on the same side, we come to the Hare Crag, 
a rock of some height which juts out into the river 
and overlooks a fine salmon-hold that is seldom or 
never without its tenant. I have taken a fish or two 
here, and a perilous spot to commit the tackle to it 
is, on account of the submerged rocks which lie in 
conjunction with it. The most difficult of the salares 
to deal with, under this peculiarity of shelter-ground, 
is a boring kipper or brown male, which has become 
familiarised with its quarters—in other werd: has 
