And of bull trout, which easily passes for salmon with the unwary, it is well that a word should be said. The _salmo eriox_ has long established its title to the Coquet as its own exclusive stream. "On the Coquet it goes by the name of salmon," says a writer on angling, "there being no true salmon in that river. Bull trout very rarely takes fly or bait of any kind, except when it is in the kelt state, when it is ravenous. It reaches fifteen and twenty pounds in weight." A noble fish, it will be remarked; but why should it have laid exclusive claim to the Coquet, with that river lying, as it does, between such salmon-haunted streams as the Tyne and the Tweed? This is a puzzle which the scientific mind finds itself incapable of solving to this day. A generation since it was maintained that the bull trout devoured the young of salmon, and it was decided, therefore, that the _salmo eriox_ should itself be destroyed. By the connivance of the local landowner every specimen of the bull trout was killed as it entered the river from the sea. Breeding ponds for salmon were then established at Rothbury, and 17,000 young fish were turned into the Coquet in a single year. Many of these were branded for future identification, but, so far as was known, not a single fish of the whole 17,000 ever came back to the stream in which it was bred. Some were caught in the Tyne, and some in the Tweed, and some in more distant rivers, but never did the bite of a true salmon reward the patient angler by Coquetside. Worse than all, too, the common trout deteriorated, for they had fed on the spawn of the _salmo eriox_. These things becoming apparent, as much anxiety was shown to get the bull trout back to the river as there had been eagerness for its destruction. The bull trout is now, in fact, strictly preserved under the salmon laws. There is a Coquet Fish Conservancy Board; and the catching of bull trout in Coquet, alike by nets and by more artificial expedients, is now a considerable industry, much of the so-called salmon exported to France and Spain being no more than the _salmo eriox_ of the English Border. There are those who will not even yet believe that the Coquet cannot be made a salmon river. Now and then some angler confidently announces that he has caught a true salmon in this delightful and prolific stream. Such tales are listened to with interest, but are not believed. Even experienced fishermen are capable of confounding the bull trout with its nobler brother of the streams. [Illustration: ON THE COQUET, BRINKBURN.]