dark-green beds of this plant, we now see, puffing and belching, steaming railway engines. Continuing our way through Buccleuch Pend, and along by the Meadows and the Sciennes, we pass the Grange Toll, the Pow Burn, and on to Burdiehouse by the Windmill and St Catherines. This burn then ran in many a zigzag What beautiful red trout were once its inhabitants! Where are they now? Its bed is now cut straight: its waters are gone, and so are they!

course.

We got to the Castle, then to the Linn below the paper mill. Some sleech off their hooks at the first throw, and their sport is at an end for the day. I succeed in getting two or three beautiful trouts, of half a pound each; others get glorious nibbles; and we trudge into Edinburgh, quite happy with our sport, short as it was, and hungry as hawks. Ah! how happy is the angler! as Sir Thomas More says, 'If his sport should fail him, he at the least hath his holsom walk, and, mery at his ease, a swete ayre of the swete savour of the meade of flowers that maketh him hungry: he heareth the melodious harmonie of fowles; he seeth the young swans, herons, ducks, cotes, and many other fowles.'

I am told, if you fished there now, you would be gazed at,—all the trout having been destroyed by lime, and other deleterious matter, long since.1

I remember an old ash tree at Dryden, near Roslin, which my father felled, and for which he gave L.37, 15s.,—some goodly sticks or stycks in Scotland, though Dr Johnson saw none.

Glencorse.

I went once in 1817, with my lamented and dear friend George Brunton, who afterwards became editor of the Patriot newspaper in Edin

เ

1 The Duke of Buccleuch is reported to have said, at a meeting of Commissioners of Supply of Water at Edinburgh in 1858, speaking of preserving the rivers pure, That Hawick, Selkirk, and Galashiels, under the pressure of the Tweed Commissioners, had made arrangements by which the water was so filtered, that the poisonous ingredients were prevented getting into the river.' This is a dream of his Grace. I never saw such: there is no such thing. At Galashiels and Selkirk, no doubt, such a thing ought to be done, and has been long talked about. -A company a few years ago tried this on the Don; but failed to make it pay.

burgh, and others, to fish here; but, alas! when we got there, I could only see some small trouts, which fled from us, as Rodger said of Jenny, as from a 'shelly-coated cow.' We visited the Crawley springs, at that time only bubbling out of the ground in two or three places, not yet having been taken care of by the Water Company; nor were there as yet any Compensation Ponds in this neighbourhood. The day turning wet, and our habits being social, we all went to an honest ale-house for cakes and ale. The youths of Edinburgh at that time never met together but they discussed something. There was little conversation then in Scotland at table, but plenty of discussion, and in Edinburgh, society to this day, as I find it, they are tarred wi' the same stick. Our subject got soon as obscure as Milton's devils did on the Lake of Fire when they discussed theology. Brunton was very eloquent; and, when we got up to go, he was nowhere to be found, and we had to take the road without him. He soon after came up with us. He had stepped into the churchyard, which was adjacent,.and had written the following lines on the tombstone of his grandfather, which he

gave me in remembrance of the day; beginning thus:

By the grave of my fathers I'll set me a while,
And think of the men who, released from their toil,
Nor sigh for life's pleasures, nor weep for its sorrow,
Whose days are all joy, and who fear no to-morrow.
All around me is still, not a zephyr is stirring;

All is mute save the sheep, which now bleat on the
hill,

And the croon of the muircock, which round me is whirring:

All is awfully desolate, silent, and still.

I saw, in 1818, a trout caught in the garden. behind Muir's Inn, which weighed five pounds. From all I know, it was the last of this poisoned race in this place. Mark this, ye polluters and defilers of pure streams. I have also fished for trout at Melville Castle, and, along with my father, chased many from stone to stone at Dalhousie; but the place that once knew them, knows them no more.'

6. Tail.

6

2. Ventral (or Belly). 4. Back Fin.

They spawn about October and November; are in perfection

in May and June.

DESCRIPTION (AS MENTIONED BY STODDART).

Salmo Ferox of Lochawe.

Salmo Fario, common Trout.
Gillarious Trout (Gizzard).
Salmo Cæcifer or Levenensis.
Salmo Salar (the Salmon).

Trout Fly-Fishing.

HIS is decidedly the favourite mode of fishing in Scotland; and, when about to exercise it, the first step taken is to get a ROD of about thirteen feet, or longer if