132 THE COMPLETE ANGLER 



towards the salt water, and then by taking a part of 

 them again with the known mark at the same place at 

 their return from the sea, which is usually about six 

 months after ; * and the like experiment hath been tried 

 upon young swallows, who have, after six months' 

 absence, been observed to return to the same chimney, 

 there to make their nests and habitations for the summer 

 following : which has inclined many to think, that 

 every salmon usually f returns to the same river in 

 which it was bred, as young pigeons taken out of the 

 same dove-cote have also been observed to do. 



And you are yet to observe farther, that the he-salmon 

 is usually bigger than the spawner ; and that he is more 

 kipper, and less able to endure a winter in the fresh 

 water than she is : yet she is, at that time of looking 

 less kipper and better, as watery, and as bad meat.J 



And yet you are to observe, that as there is no 

 general rule without an exception, so there are some 

 few rivers in this nation, that have trouts and salmons 

 in season in winter, as it is certain there be in the River 

 Wye in Monmouthshire, where they be in season, as 

 Camden observes, from September till April. But, 



* On an average, salmon return from sea to their native rivers in 

 three months, rarely in a month, but very frequently in two. A 

 sea-sojourn of four months is rare ; one of six quite abnormal. E. 



t Not only " usually," but always, if not disabled or killed. E. 



J This short paragraph is erroneous. A female salmon may 

 be twice as large, or twice as small, as the mala with which she 

 consorts on the spawning bed. She is frequently obliged to mate 

 with male fish of all sizes and ages, nay, with small male trout. If 

 a male and female salmon, the produce of the same brood, were to 

 consort, after having been the same time on the same feeding- 

 ground at sea, the female would be the larger fish. She suffers 

 more from the effects of spawning than the male, and he is better, 

 not " less, able to endure a winter in the fresh water than she is." 

 He more promptly recovers from the " kelt " state, and is sooner 

 fitted for his sea voyage. E. 



I do not think there are any rivers in the empire which have the 

 common, non-migratory trout " in season in winter." But there are 

 a few rivers, the majority of which are Welsh, in which salmon are in 

 season, or at least clean and fresh-run in winter in November and 

 December. These fish are late spawners. Very early spawners 



