2110-6-5-18

Braco House, Isla Road, Perth. Tel. 630.

Sept. 29. 1933

Dear Col Buchan

I expect that the compiler of "Musa Piscatrix" may be interested in fishing poetry. So I am enclosing a little book (of which I happen to have a duplicate copy, so please keep it) by Canon Liddell - once Vicar of St Pauls Knightsbridge. He wrote quite a lot about The Tweed, The Earn and the Tay.

Also a few lines by a local scribe, on P.D. Malloch.

It was a real pleasure to meet you yesterday.

Your very truly

P.M. Smythe

In Memoriam.

P.D. Malloch, 1932

Never again upon Loch Leven's wave

Your 'teal and red' will fall like thistledown.

Never again your "Favourite" will prevail

When spates run off and streams are clearing brown.

Never again beside the lordly Tay

Your "Dusty Miller" will the salmon lure

By Benchil, Stanley and Pitlochry head,

By Thistlebrig, Ballathie and Meikleour.

The Bran, the Earn, the Schochie and the May,

The Almond, by whose banks you count your lore,

The Garbh, the Tarfl [Tarff?], the Tummel and the Tay

And all the haunts you loved know you no more.

Farewell, old friend: for many a day we'll miss

The kindly twinkle of your merry eye.

As you romantic records did recall

Of doughty deeds with minnow prawn and fly.

And now we trust that by the eternal streams

You wander peacefully and watch the ways

Of birds and fish and flies and Cherubim:

and catch the echoes of unending praise.

Nor wish again to angle: for, indeed,

We humbly hope that, once within that portal,

Saved by His Grace Who died that we might live,

Man, beast and fish alike are all immortal.