330 LABRADOR 



I have lain on a high perpendicular rock, watching the gill- 

 net stretched across the pool of clear, transparent water. 

 I have seen the approach of the victim and his friends on 

 the journey, the courage with which he charged the net. 

 If only he would give way, he might yet go free. But he 

 knows no yielding, and is not satisfied till the tough twine 

 has passed over his head, caught behind his gills, and then 

 it is too late to save himself. 



But we will follow the more successful fish that reach the 

 home of a former year. Once in their pool, the mother fish 

 finds a suitable sandy or fine gravelly spot in shallow water, 

 where the ground is soft and deep, and the current not too 

 boisterous. Often enough it is the nest of a sea-trout before 

 her, but of that she takes little account. Throwing herself 

 on her side, she scoops out a "redd," or nest, by flapping her 

 tail, and in this she deposits a number of eggs. She then 

 returns into deeper water, coming to and fro to her nest to 

 lay more eggs for several days, till she has laid as many as 

 five hundred for every pound she weighs. Each time, 

 her male partner accompanies her, depositing the milt 

 required to fertilize the eggs. Since they entered the river, 

 they have avoided one source of danger by taking no food, 

 and they subsist on the fat accumulated on the rich pastures 

 outside the river. Indeed, the beautiful pink of their flesh 

 depends on the crustaceans they have there devoured. 



the falls, he noticed first one and then another, that failed to clear 

 the fall, totally disappear. A careful search revealed the fish head 

 down and only their tails out of deep little pot-holes. He caught 

 the fish for food, but was surprised to find the hole full at the bottom 

 of bones of salmon that had no doubt perished miserably in the same 

 way. It shows that salmon at times come head first down into the 

 water when diving, like an expert human being. 



