OF A SALMON. 43 



fairly in open day by the lawful two and a half 

 inch mesh, or dragged out furtively on a moon- 

 light morning by some poaching scoundrel with a 

 net that would take a gudgeon ; whether submit- 

 ting reluctantly, after a long and gallant strug- 

 gle, to the skill and science of an experienced 

 flyfisher ; or speared, in some remote glen, in the 

 dead of night by the blaze of torchlight : still 

 thy doom at last must come; thou art not "food 

 for fishes ! " 



But so it is: as with man, so with the salmon. 

 Futurity is veiled from his view; nor wots he 

 even one tithe of the dangers already escaped, 

 far less those that await him. We will, therefore, 

 accompany our salmon, in the fifth year of his 

 migration, over some part of his course, ere we 

 again take leave of him. 



And here we are compelled to plead a 

 "hiatus." We know not where our native 

 of the Dee has spent his last few months. 

 That he has been laving his glittering sides 

 in the briny waters of the sea, feeding vora- 

 ciously on the abundance of its more diminutive 

 inhabitants, and making marvellous progress 

 in growth and weight, we know; but very little 

 else, as yet, we do know; except that we can 

 tell certain parts of the deep which, most 

 assuredly, he has not visited. He has never 



G 



