172 ANGLING REMINISCENCES. 



lank kipper, of woe-begone aspect, beshrew me an thou 

 would'st have parted with him so readily ! 



Otter. I grant you, Bill, you have reason for your 

 conjecture. There is strange magic, I allow, in the eye 

 of. a clean-run salmon, which one hath just uncomned 

 from the pool where he designed wintering. I could 

 no more resist it than Adam could the apples of our 

 grand-progenitrix. Yet with respect to ripe, pregnant, 

 and unwholesome fish, I aver that the meddling there- 

 with is a disgrace to our craft, who ought, above all 

 others, to be the natural protectors of the spawner, and 

 favour, to their utmost ability, the increase of salmon. 



May. Neat professions these, were they alway acted 

 up to. But how comes it, Tom, that your mighty 

 regard for the close-season allows you to break in upon 

 it as you do at present ? See you nothing injurious to 

 the breeding of these noble fish in our angling for 

 trout among their places of resort, and over the very 

 channels where they are accustomed to shed their ova, ? 



Otter. Much otherwise. There is no species of 

 enemy so hostile to the salmon while spawning as 

 the common yellow trout, a single individual of which 

 will consume, in the course of a day, nearly its 

 own bulk in roe. You may perceive, by the readi- 

 ness with which they assail our baits, how deadly 

 they are to the unhatched progeny ; and truly 

 we can do no greater service to the holders of sal- 

 mon-fishings on the lower parts of the waters than by 

 thinning the swarms of spoilers, which at this period 



