xxii INTRODUCTORY 



peculiar joy of standing waist deep in a clear High- 

 land river, the water lapping one's bare elbows as 

 one casts, the nearness of the glitter on the surface, 

 the sense of being part of this moving, life-giving 

 force ! These are joys, apart altogether from the 

 success of the sport, which more than compensate 

 for the strokes of ill fortune, the dire disasters when 

 sun, moon, and stars seem to fall from their places, 

 as well as for the petty exasperations which on 

 certain days seem constantly to dog one's steps. 



But the angler carries away with him when he 

 leaves the river the results of his observations, and 

 when he smokes his evening pipe those salmon 

 problems rise again in his mind, and he goes to the 

 river on the morrow with fresh suggestions and 

 explanations, fresh points to follow out by renewed 

 observation. Sir Joshua said that to get his fine 

 results he mixed his paints with brains. So in sport, 

 as in other things where perfected appliances mean 

 a good deal, it is after all "the man behind the 

 machine that counts." Yet what a long time it has 

 taken us to gain anything like a satisfactory know- 

 ledge of the salmon. 



It is only seventy years since Shaw,* at Drum- 

 lanrig, proved that the parr is the young of the 

 salmon and not a small adult member of the salmon 

 family. All the early writers, up to Parnell (1838), 

 describe the parr under the name of salmo salmulus, 

 and the author named states at considerable length 



* Shaw, "An Account of Experimental Observations on the 

 Development and Growth of Salmon Fry." Trans. Roy. Soc., Edin., 

 vol. xiv. p. 547, 1840. 



