SALMON 233 



scattered, as the night had been dark for travelling and the 

 water rushes difficult to ascend, so the strongest had passed 

 on ahead, leaving the weakest a long way behind. This day 

 I found myself with half a dozen other tired friends resting 

 beneath a boulder in a deep but rapid stream. 



" Now the one drawback to river life is the scarcity of 

 food, for excepting in rainy weather worms rarely come to us, 

 so we have to manage as best we can by eating water shrimps 

 with such like trifles, helped out by a few flies from the 

 surface ; therefore, being hungry after my exertions, my eyes 

 were on the watch for something I might devour. Presently 

 there was ever such a litde splash in the water a long way 

 to one side of me ; then, lo and behold, I saw coming towards 

 my hiding place a beautiful litde insect, the like of which 

 I had never seen before. With quiet, regular strokes it was 

 at last playing about over my head, all unconscious of my 

 presence. It worked its tiny fins, while it glittered and dis- 

 played many of the bright colours of the little fish off which 

 we had all fed so plentifully in the sea ; so saying to myself, 

 ' Surely it must be good — at any rate, I'll try it ! ' with a sweep of 

 my tail I darted from my lair, and falling below my victim, with 

 sensations of fear mingled with delight, I closed my teeth on 

 the enticing morsel and prepared to rush back to my shelter. As 

 I turned, I found that something checked me, but as there was 

 nothing to pain or otherwise cause alarm, I did not pay much 

 heed to the matter, until glancing upwards I saw there was a 

 long piece of transparent grass hanging to the insect, so think- 

 ing this might have caught in a stick or a stone, I shook my 

 head to free it, while as I glanced once more to the bank I 

 observed an approaching Foe. As he advanced I felt an odd 

 sensation of being in some way connected with him, for each 

 movement he made appeared to be reflected in my own person, 

 so that every step he took towards me lowered me a corre- 

 spondingly further distance down stream, and then, horror of 

 horrors, it flashed through my mind I was in some way fastened 

 2 H 



