the other hand, was the daylight form of
"burning," but it could be practised only when the river was dead low,
and then not unless the weather were very calm and bright. The salmon,
as they lay in the clear, sun-lit water, were speared from a boat, and
vast numbers were so killed; indeed, the frightened fish had small
chance of escape, for spearing began at the pool's foot, and men with
leisters blocked the way of escape up stream. No doubt into this, as
into its kindred sport "burning," excitement in plenty, and boisterous
fun, entered largely; many a man, miscalculating the depth of water in
which a fish lay, to the unfeigned delight of his comrades, took a
rapid and involuntary header into the icy stream. But both sports
partook too much of the nature of butchery--carts used to be needed to
carry home the spoil--and they are "weel awa' if they bide." "Bide" they
must, though in times not remote one has heard faint whisperings of the
burning of the waters in some far-off district of the Border. Nor are
there wanting those who yet openly defend the practice, deeming it
indeed no sin, but rather a benefit to the water, to take from it some
of the superfluous fish, which, say they, would otherwise almost
certainly die of disease and contaminate the stream.

Yet, if in our day the water has been burned, it cannot have been
oftener than once in a way, and probably no great harm has resulted. Nor
can the game be worth the candle, one could imagine, for watchers now
are many and alert, in the execution of their duties much more
conscientious than was common in days gone by. There are none now, we
may hope, like the bailiff of Selkirk in the early part of last century,
who constantly find salmon in close time mysteriously appearing on their
dinner-table. Yet this early nineteenth-century bailiff could truly
swear that such a thing as salmon on his table he never had seen. For it
appears that his wife, canny woman, having first brought in a platter of
potatoes, was wont to tie round his eyes a towel before she brought in
the boiled fish; and before she again took away the towel, every vestige
or trace of salmon had been carefully removed from the room. Obviously
that bailiff, honest man, could not report a breach of the law which had
never come under his observation!

Of various forms of netting which in olden days were legal, but now,
happily, are forbidden, there was that by means of the Cairn net, a most
destructive form