12 WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS chap. 



quantities of char, which fish then, and then only, approached 

 near enough to the shore to be caught in the nets. In the 

 clear frosty air of a September night the peculiar moaning cry 

 of the wild cats as they answered to each other along the 

 opposite shore, and the hootings of the owls in the pine-wood, 

 sounded like the voices of unearthly beings, and I do not think 

 that any one of my crew would have passed an hour alone by 

 that loch side for all the fish in it. Indeed, the hill-side which 

 sloped down to the lake had the name of being haunted, and 

 the waters of the lake itself had their ghostly inhabitant in the 

 shape of what the Highlanders called the water-bull. There 

 was also a story of some strange mermaid-like monster being 

 sometimes seen, having the appearance of a monstrous fish with 

 long hair. It was a scene worthy of a painter, as the men with 

 eager gestures scrambled up, the fish glancing like silver in the 

 moonbeams ; and then, as they rowed round, sometimes lost in 

 the shade of the pine-trees, which completely darkened the 

 surface of the water immediately below the rocks on which 

 they grew, or came again into full view as they left the shadow 

 of the woods, the water sparkling and glancing from their oars. 

 Frequently they stopped their wild chant, as the strange cries 

 of the different nocturnal animals echoed loudly from the rocks, 

 and we could hear the men say a few words of Gaelic to each 

 other in a low voice, and then recommence their song. 



We always caught the largest fish at night-time, both trout 

 and pike, the latter frequently above twenty pounds' weight, 

 with the teeth and jaws of a young shark. Sometimes the net 

 brought in a great number of char, which appear to go in large 

 shoals ; but these latter only in the autumn. 



In these lochs I killed great numbers of pike and the larger 

 trout by means of floating lines, which we put in at the wind- 

 ward side of the lake, to be carried down by the wind. On 

 favourable days, in March or October, when there was a brisk 

 wind, the lines went but half-way across the loch before every 

 hook had a fish on it, and then commenced a rare chase. When 

 we neared a float with a large pike hooked to it, as the water 

 was very clear, the fish took the alarm and swam off at a great 

 pace, often giving us some trouble before we could catch him. 

 I have seen an empty corked-up bottle, with line attached, used 

 as a float for this kind of fishing, instead of the corks. Pike are 



