62 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS 



to inexpert hands it was not difficult to discover, by 

 following down the gullet from the throat, that that 

 gullet led to no "stomach," but to a shrivelied-up organ 

 that once, one might assume, had been the stomach. 

 Possibly we were wholly wrong - — in our technical 

 ignorance, made some mistake ; though I hardly think 

 that probable. At any rate those are the facts, and 

 the grounds from which the above conclusions are 

 deduced. 



The function of a salmon, once he has entered the 

 fresh water, is wholly and solely to reproduce his 

 species. It is his one idea, object, and occupation. But, 

 for all that, he yet remains a raptor — a fierce creature 

 of prey. You can re-awaken that dormant pugnacity 

 with a "Jock Scott," or arouse his ire with a "phantom" ; 

 but his appetite you cannot tempt, for the digestive 

 organs, which, all his sojourn in the sea, worked at 

 highest pressure, are no longer in use ; the whole 

 physical and corporeal energies are now transferred to 

 those of reproduction. That performed, he becomes a 

 kelt once more, with a renewed appetite for light articles 

 of food, such as March-browns ; and there, amidst all 

 these perplexities, we will leave him. For the only 

 conclusion one can come to is that, as soon as ever a 

 salmon in the sea is fully "fed up," and can no more, 

 he must at once return to fresh water ; and that that 

 condition may be attained at quite irregular times, often 

 entirely irrespective of Nature's one fixed date, the 

 spawning-time in December. 



The subaquatic habit of fish (and especially of 

 migrating fish) imposes a degree of care in formu- 

 lating conclusions beyond even those that prevail in 

 other branches of zoology. For so much is unseen, 



