Loch Lomond
A Study in Angling Conditions. By Henry Lamond, F.S.A. Scot. (Glasgow: Jackson, Wylie and Co. 12a. lid.)
As the population of this island increases it requires more and more pure water, for drinking, for washing, for sanitation, for manufactures. As the goodly company of anglers increases, with an increase greater than the population's, there is added necessity to keep the waters pure, and to find more waters— for them to fish in. In England we shall, for all these purposes, in the near future, be forced to make more reservoirs, to preserve the waters which now run to waste with every flood : in Scotland they have the water, ready preserved and stored by nature in countless lochs. The task of the Scot is, there- fore, only to keep his rivers and lakes pure (and safe from poachers)—and what a task that is this book shows. Thanks to Mr. Lamond and his Association conditions are steadily improving. But even now, so recently as last year, there were schemes afoot for pouring sewage into the estuary without purification : Angling Associations in Scotland, as in England, must be eternally vigilant if our rivers are to be kept safe. To do this, public opinion must be stirred to protest and to action. And every one, whether fisherman or not, who loves pure water and natural beauty, will be thankful to Mr. Lamond for showing us what has been &We, how it has been done—and what there remains to do.
But this book is not wholly concerned with the gloomy problems of pollution, and the struggle with authorities, careless or money-grubbing or actively malevolent. Mr. Lamond tells the story of his beautiful Loch from pre-historic times ; he describes at length its natural features and its chief feature, the islands. And every fisherman will appre- ciate the account which he gives, not only of the earlier sportsmen who fished and enjoyed Loch Lomond—Franck. the Cromwellian, the two Georgian Colonels, Thornton and Hawker—but also of modern anglers and modern triumphs of the rod in the Loch which has " come back " so wonderfully, in large measure through Mr. Lamond's own unremitting care and
vigilance.
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