THE SALMON 



salmon's direct leap is not, I think, far from the mark. 

 Scrope, whose opportunities of observation were very 

 great, combats Yarrell's account of their power of 

 leaping ten or twelve feet perpendicularly, saying that 

 he has never seen a salmon spring out of the water 

 more than five feet perpendicularly. He mentions 

 having measured the fall of the Leader into the Tweed, 

 which salmon could never surmount, and determined 

 it to vary from five and a half to six feet, according 

 to the level of the flood. He adds that large fish can 

 leap higher than small ones, and that deep water gives 

 them a better opportunity than shallow. ' They rise 

 rapidly, from the very bottom to the surface of the 

 water, by means of rowing and sculling, as it were, 

 with their fins and tail; and this powerful impetus 

 bears them upwards in the air, on the same principle 

 that a few tugs of the oar make a boat shoot onwards 

 after one has ceased to row.' This is a better method 

 of accounting for the height of a salmon leap than old 

 Izaak quotes from Michael Drayton's ' Polyolbion ' : — 



' and stems the watery tract 

 Where Tivy falling down makes a high cataract 

 Forc'd by the rising floods that there her course oppose, 

 As tho' within her bounds they meant her to inclose ; 

 Here when the labouring fish does at the foot arrive, 

 And finds that by his strength he does but vainly strive, 

 His tail takes in his mouth, and bending like a bow 



