DO GREYLING DIMINISH THE TROUT? 269 trout of a large portion of the food he would have if left to himself, and it is a curious fact that in good greyling streams the trout are seldom of so good quality or condition as they are in pure trout streams. Whether this be at all owing to the greyling or no, it is difficult to say. I do not think that any number of greyling diminish the trout more than the same number of trout would, and the more particularly as greyling do not habitually feed on the fry, or on their own offspring, while trout do greedily; and for this reason alone greyling will increase faster than trout, as this source of destruction (a very large one in mere trout streams) is wanting as regards the greyling. Greyling certainly are more of burrowers and ground feeders than trout, and if it be thought that the greyling do really diminish the trout, a little artificial breeding would easily keep up the balance. But I conceive that when greyling are introduced into pure trout streams, the following change takes place: as the greyling increase, the trout must either fall off in condition or diminish in number somehow, for a stream will only support a certain number of fish up to a certain size and condition; and if, for example, it holds 5,000 trout, you cannot put 5,000 greyling into it as well, and still keep up the number and condition of your trout. But if, for the sake of extending your sport for many months, or for the variety, you are satisfied with a slight diminution in the weight of your baskets of trout, then you can do well enough; or, if this does not suit, then you must resort to a large system of artificial feeding, and to what extent we can or could carry this point of the question in an open stream, is a calculation which experiments in fish culture to be carried out in the future, alone can assure us of. Everybody can understand that if a field of turnips will support fifty sheep for a month, and you turn twenty cows into it as well, the field will not support the additional call made on it for the same period; 270 HOW TO PROVIDE AGAINST IT. but if you choose on this space to draw cart loads of turnips, then you can support any reasonable quantity of stock as long as you like, and even fatten them like pigs or prize cattle, the increase being regulated by the quantity of turnips you draw on. A stream is in this sense a field of turnips, and you must till it and stock it accordingly; but you must not be surprised, if you starve your cattle, at their being in poor condition, or even at their eating each others tails off, or even at their dying out. Greyling do not eat trout fry, or a very few of them, but trout do eat greyling fry, so I am inclined to give the balance of destruction in reality to the trout, which is without exception the most voracious and omnivorous of all fish. Greyling are not so easy to transplant from one river to another as trout, as the ova is much more tender than that of trout, and if the weather should happen to set in warm in April and May, they become very difficult to hatch and rear, and very liable to go off wholesale. In rivers where they do take, however, they soon thrive and make their way rapidly, often in a few years outnumbering the trout which may have tenanted the river before them. THE ROD-THE REEL AND LINE-HOW TO USE THEM-CASTING-STRIKING— PLAYING A SALMON-SEA TROUT FISHING. I HAVE now brought the student on through all the various grades of angling, from the first and earliest efforts of the tyro amongst the smallest and most insignificant quarries of the angler's art, up to what is usually considered the last and highest walk of his skill-the capture of the lordly salmon. If I have been somewhat lengthy, the angler must remember that he has reached, in the short space of 270 pages, the point which it took me as it does many others nearly twenty years to reach. It has been well said that salmon-fishing is sport for kings. Fox-hunting is a noble pastime, and the first burst from the covert side full of joyous excitement. Drawing ahead on the wild red deer after hours of careful stalking, is no doubt an anxious and exciting second. But the bold rise and the first wild rush of a twenty pound salmon thrills through the frame as nothing else in the nature of sport does; and I have never known a man who has in him the true essence of a sportsman, and who has for the first time felt and seen the play of a fresh run salmon in his native river, who has not been a salmon-fisher for ever. I have known and heard of scenes and instances where other sports have been given up for salmon-fishing, but never heard I of one (when sport was on) where salmon 272 THE SALMON : A TOUCHING INCIDENT. fishing was given up for any other; and many a sceptic has been convinced of the truth of all this by having eighteen feet of hickory and a hundred yards of line put into his hands, with a salmon freshly hooked at one end of the line. There is a story told of a pawkey old Scot whose wife was very ill, but who, tempted by the fine ply in which the river was, had just slipped away and stepped down to 'tak a cast o' her.' He had just risen and hooked a splendid fish which was showing him magnificent sport, when one came running to him wringing his hands and crying, 'Laird, laird, the mistress is deein-deein-deein!' Ah mon! ye dinna say sae! Rin awa' bock thin, Donald, and tell her joost to hing on till a've kill't the fusshe.' The words were hardly out of his mouth, when, as if to punish him for his inhumanity, the salmon gave a great spring and broke away. Was ever the likes o' that?-it's joost a judgment!' was the exclamation, as handing the rod to his retainer, he hurried off to his wife's bed-side, and duly received her last breath, and cheered her last moments. Great and sincere was his grief, and he mourned her deeply. Old friends and neighbours came to console him. His old crony, Rab M'Allister, mingled his sympathy with praises of the virtues of the departed. She was aye a gude wife, laird.' The laird assented with a sad shake of the head. But we're a' dust, laird.' 'We're that; oh, we're that; dinna doot it,' was the melancholy response. 'And ye've tint her, laird.' At this the laird brightened up. It's varra true, Rab; but did ye hear o' the big fusshe the news o't tint me i' the morn? Hey, mon, that was a fusshe!' Perhaps of all the branches of angling none have made such strides in popularity as salmon-fishing. Formerly it was confined to the favoured few-to those who could afford to devote a fortnight to travel into Scotland or the SALMON-ANGLING AND THE BRITISH SNOB. 273 wilds of Ireland, and the same time to come back, with all the attendant expense and trouble. But, as in grouseshooting, 'nous avons changé tout cela.' Now gold hath the sway-him we all obey, for he certainly has Managed to send our ancient friend To be tossed on the stormy sea. In some instances, rivers are still held by their aristocratic proprietors. In many more, however, Manchester and Liverpool, with burly John Bright at their head, have invaded the once sacred soil, bundled out the whilom occupiers, and taken possession, and our oldest and best rods have taken yacht and are gone to Norway, and for a time made a close borough of that once piscatorial Goshen. But awhile ago Norway was a pleasant spot for a fisherman. The few fishermen to be met with there were (they are not now) fond of telling of their sport; but they were gentlemen and sportsmen of the old school for the most part, on whose time business had no claims. The natives were civil, easily satisfied, and fishing was easy to come at. But this is all altered within a very few years. Business men soon came in to compete for the prizes, and the British snob soon followed suit, and forthwith he took his abominable annual holiday, and toured the country, dragged his tackle together, and set off in shoals in pursuit of the object of his worship and adoration, the nob of his own land. Throwing his spare cash about like the idiot he is-when he has plenty; transporting his nasty little vices and manners along with him; aping all that is bad in his model, and unable to understand or imitate the good; he has played the same pranks there that he has all over the world. Civis Londinensis sum; and so the natives become grasping, T |