Days and Nights of Salmon Fishing in the Tweed. By WILLIAM SCROPE, Esq., F.L.S. 1 vol. royal 8vo. London, 1843.
We have here a work of great beauty in a pictorial and typographical point of view, and one which abounds with practical information regarding the bolder branches of the "gentle art." Mr Scrope conveys to us, in an agreeable and lively manner, the results of his more than twenty years' experience as an angler in our great border river; and having now successfully illustrated, both with pen and pencil, two of the most exciting of all sporting recreations—deer-stalking and salmon-fishing—he may henceforward repose himself upon the mountain-side, or by the murmuring waters, with the happy consciousness of having not only followed the bent of his own inclinations, but contributed to the amusement and instruction of a numerous class of his fellow creatures. The present volume consists of no dry didactic dissertations on an art unteachable by written rules, and in which, without long and often dear-bought experience, neither precept nor example will avail; but it contains a sufficiency of sagacious practical advice, and is enlivened by the narration of numerous angling adventures, which bring out, with force and spirit, the essential character of the sport in question.
Great advances have been recently made in our knowledge of the sea-going Salmonidæ. Indeed, all the leading facts of primary importance in the history of their first development and final growth are now distinctly known, and have lately been laid before the public in the form both of original memoirs in our scientific journals, and the transactions of learned societies, and of more popular abstracts in various literary works. We ourselves discussed the subject in this Magazine, with our accustomed clearness, a couple of months ago; and we shall therefore not here enter into the now no longer vexed question of the nature of parr and smolts,—all doubt and disputation regarding the actual origin and family alliance of these fry, their descent from and eventual conversion into grilse and salmon, being finally set at rest to the satisfaction of every reasonable and properly instructed mind. We consider it, however, as a good proof of the natural sagacity and observant disposition of our present author, that he should have come to the same conclusion several years ago, regarding the habits and history of salmon-fry, as that so successfully demonstrated by Mr Shaw. Mr Scrope dwells with no unbecoming pertinacity on this point; but he shows historically, while fully admitting the importance and originality of that ingenious observer's experimental proceedings, that he had, in the course of his own private correspondence and conversation, called the attention of Mr Kennedy of Dunure as a legislator, and of Sir David Brewster as a skilled interpreter of natural phenomena, to various facts corresponding to those which have been since so skilfully detailed by Mr Shaw.
Our author, though well acquainted with the sporting capabilities of all parts of Scotland, here confines himself to the lower portions of the Tweed, more than twelve miles of which he has rented at different times. We in some measure regret that one so able to inform us, from his extensive experiences regarding the nature and localities of the first-rate though rather precarious angling for salmon which may be obtained in the northern parts of Scotland, should not have contrived to include an account of the more uproarious Highland streams and placid lakes frequented by this princely species. With all our admiration for the flowing Tweed, of which we have fondly traced the early feeble voice—
"a fitful sound
Wafted o'er sullen moss and craggy mound,
Unfruitful solitudes, that seem'd t' upbraid
The sun in heaven!"—
until, through many an intermediate scene of infinitely varied beauty, the expanded waters—
"Gliding in silence with unfetter'd sweep,
Beneath an ampler sky, a region wide
Is open'd round them:—hamlets, towers, and towns,
And blue-topp'd hills, behold them from afar:"—
we should still have rejoiced to find a twin volume devoted to those wilder and more desolate scenes by which the northern angler is encompassed. Meanwhile we accept with pleasure our author's "Days and Nights" upon the Tweed.
Salmon ascend from the sea, and enter this fine river, in greater or less abundance, during every period of the year, becoming more plentiful as the summer advances, provided there is a sufficiency of rain both to enlarge and discolour the waters, and thus enable the fish to pass more securely over those rippling shallows which so frequently occur between the deeper streams.
"The salmon," says Mr Scrope "travels rapidly, so that those which leave the sea, and go up the Tweed on the Saturday night at twelve o'clock, after which time no nets are worked till the Sabbath is past, are found and taken on the following Monday near St Boswell's—a distance, as the river winds, of about forty miles. This I have frequently ascertained by experience. When the strength of the current in a spate is considered, and also the sinuous course a salmon must take in order to avoid the strong rapids, their power of swimming must be considered as extraordinary."—P. 10.