82 AMERICAN FISHES. 



I am disposed, therefore, to believe with Yarrel, that this oc- 

 casional variation from their ordinary custom, is caused by their 

 having strayed to such a distance from their native estuaries, that 

 when the time comes for returning, they prefer taking the first suitable 

 river, to making longer delay. 



The female fish, it is observed, are the first to enter the rivers, and 

 the grilse, or young fish, which have not yet spawned, come in 

 earlier than the full-grown Salmon. They swim with great rapidity, 

 shoot up the most oblique and glancing rapids, with the velocity of an 

 arrow, and frequently leap falls of ten or twelve feet in perpendicular 

 height. 



It was formerly believed that, in making their prodigious springs, 

 the fish takes its tail in its mouth, and shoots itself like a pliant stick, 

 the ends of which are forcibly brought together and then allowed to 

 spring. This, however, is a fable ; although, in making these leaps, 

 the muscular efi"orts of the animal do really impart to it a curvilinear 

 form. 



It is believed that the utmost limit of perpendicular height which 

 they can attain is fourteen feet ; but their perseverance is as remarkable 

 as their strength, and though they fail time after time, and fall back 

 into the stream below, they remain but a few moments quiescent, to 

 recruit their strength, before they renew their efi'orts ; and they 

 generally succeed in the end, although they are said sometimes to kill 

 themselves by the violence of their own efi'orts to ascend, and are 

 frequently captured in consequence of falling on the rocks. 



1 once watched a Salmon for above an hour endeavoring to pass a 

 mill-dam on the river Wharfe, a Salmon river in the West Riding of 

 Yorkshire. The dam was of great height, thirteen or fourteen feet 

 at least, and was formed with a sort of step midway, on which the 

 water fell, making a double cascade. While I was watching him, 

 this fish, which was, I suppose, of some seven or eight pounds, made 

 above twenty leaps, constantly alighting from his spring about midway 

 the upper shoot of the water, and being constantly swept back into 

 the eddy at its foot. After a pause of about a couple of minutes, he 

 would try it again ; and such was his vigor and endurance, that he at 

 last succeeded in surmounting the formidable obstacle ; and to my 



