Car. VI.] ANGLING. 59 
Roy’s down yonder as getting a ducking in the river ; and they 
are wise enough not to run the risk of it.” Not bad reasoning 
either, thought I; nor can I wonder that the poor water-bailiffs 
would prefer a quiet bow] of toddy to a row with a party of wild 
Badenoch poachers, who, though good-natured enough on the 
whole, were determined to have their night’s fun out in spite of 
all opposition. There are worse poachers, too, than these said 
Highlanders, who only come down now and then more for the 
amusement than the profit of the thing; and whom it is generally 
better policy to keep friends with than to make enemies of. 
The ponderous lexicographer, who describes a fishing-rod as a 
stick with a fool at one end, and a worm at the other, displays in 
this saying more wit than wisdom. Not that I quite go the 
whole length of my quaint and amiable old friend, Isaac Walton, 
who implies in every page of his paragon of a book, that the art 
of angling is the summum bonum of happiness, and that an 
angler must needs be the best of men. I do believe, however, 
that no determined angler can be naturally a bad or vicious man. 
No man who enters into the silent communings with Nature, 
whose beauties he must be constantly surrounded by, and familiar 
with during his ramblings as an angler, can fail to be improved 
in mind and disposition during his solitary wanderings amongst 
the most lovely and romantic works of the creation, in the wild 
Highland glens and mountains through which the best streams 
take their course. I do not include in my term angler, the pond 
or punt fisher, however well versed he may be in the arts of 
spitting worms and impaling frogs, so learnedly discussed by 
Tsaac—notwithstanding the kindliness and simplicity of heart so 
conspicuous in every line he writes. Angling in my sense of 
the word implies, wandering with rod and creel in the wild soli- 
tudes, and tempting (or endeavouring to do so) the fish from 
their clear water, with artificial fly or minnow. Nothing can 
be more unlike the “worm” described as forming one end of 
the thing called a fishing-rod, than the gay and gaudy collection 
of feathers and tinsel which form the attraction of a Findhorn 
fly. Let us look at the salmon-fly, which I have just finished, 
and which now lies on the table before me, ready for trial in 
some Clear pool of the river. To begin: I tie with well-waxed 
silk a portion of silkworms’ intestines on a highly-tempered and 
