fle under that
weight, on the whole. They are famous, and, according to Sir Walter
Scott, were famous as long ago as in Queen Mary's time, for the bright
silver of their sides, for their pink flesh, and gameness when hooked.
Theorists have explained all this by saying that they are the descendants
of land-locked salmon. The flies used on the loch are smaller than those
favoured in the Highlands; they are sold attached to casts, and four
flies are actually employed at once. Probably two are quite enough at a
time. If a veteran trout is attracted by seeing four flies, all of
different species, and these like nothing in nature, all conspiring to
descend on him at once, he must be less cautious than we generally find
him. The Hampshire angler, of course, will sneer at the whole
proceeding, the "chucking and chancing it," in the queer-coloured wave,
and the use of so many fanciful entomological specimens. But the
Hampshire angler is very welcome to try his arts, in a calm, and his
natural-looking cocked-up flies. He will probably be defeated by a
grocer from Greenock, sinking his four flies very deep, as is, by some
experts, recommended. The trout are capricious, perhaps as capricious as
any known to the angler, but they are believed to prefer a strong east
wind and a dark day. The east wind is nowhere, perhaps, so bad as people
fancy; it is certainly not so bad as the north wind, and on Loch Leven it
is the favourite. The man who is lucky enough to hit on the right day,
and to land a couple of dozen Loch Leven trout, has very good reason to
congratulate himself, and need envy nobody. But such days and such takes
are rare, and the summer of 1890 was much more unfortunate than that of
1889.

One great mistake is made by the company which farms the Loch, stocks it,
supplies the boats, and regulates the fishing. They permit trolling with
angels, or phantoms, or the natural minnow. Now, trolling may be
comparatively legitimate, when the boat is being pulled against the wind
to its drift, but there is no more skill in it than in sitting in an
omnibus. But for trolling, many a boat would come home "clean" in the
evening, on days of calm, or when, for other reasons of their own, the
trout refuse to take the artificial fly. Yet there are men at Loch Leven
who troll all day, and poor sport it must be, as a trout of a pound or so
has no chance on a trolling-rod. This method is inimical to fly-fishing,
but is such a con