32 



SOME NOTES ON THE GAME-FISH. 



During the mouth of Apiil, in average dry seasons, the 

 Redewater (and other rivers) are full of salmon and bull- 

 trout kelts, unable to get down to the sea for want of 

 water. Many of these fish are in the last stages of disease, 

 long, lank, hungry-looking brutes, disfigured with, great 

 white leprose spots, especially about the head, and lying 

 inert and listless in backwaters and burn-mouths. For 

 these a flood-water would avail nothing. They are too far 

 gone, and the sand-banks are strewn with the bodies of those 

 already defunct — choice morsels for the Corbies. Sometimes 

 one of these dying kelts gets into a stream too rapid for his 

 strength, and is carried down "all ends up" — tail first, 

 head first, or sideways — and one sees his white belly glint 

 as he tumbles over and over in the current. Or in wading 

 in the dead water, one, perhaps, almost steps on to one of 

 these poor moribund fish — it is rather surprising, on looking 

 down for a fresh foothold, to see a great salmon' s tail wearily 

 fanning the water within a few inches, and the fish apparently 

 quite unconscious of one's approach. 



Up to the middle of April there is, probably, not a single 

 clean-run salmon in the upper waters. But they swarm with 

 smolts, both the game-looking silver-clad fish, which I suppose 

 is the young of salmo salar, and the coarser-looking, " finger- 

 markel," trout-like kind, with large red spots on his flanks, 

 which is probably the young bull-trout. The silvery fish are 

 all gone by the end of April ; but the others remain in the 

 river all the spring, and by .June some have grown to a fair 

 size. There are also thousands, or tens of thousands, of the 

 flmall " par," or " rack," whose species is probably undefin- 

 able precisely, by any one. By the law of the land, it is 

 illegal to take any of these various fish, and penalties can 



