296 NORTHERN MEMOIRS. 



thesis, that he is always to be found, though not 

 always in season. Besides, the salmon is inci- 

 dent, as other fish are, to various accidents ; 

 more especially if we consider the female fish, 

 who in the spring (as other females do) drops 

 her eggs (but some call it spawn) which makes 

 her infirm : and if it so happen that she lags 

 behind her natural mate in the fall of the leaf, 

 she is then prohibited the benefit of salt-water 

 to bathe her fins, and carry off her slimy impu- 

 rities, which is the natural cause of her kipper- 

 ish infirmity, that alters her delicate proportion 

 of body, and blots out the beautiful vermilian 

 stain and sanguin tincture of blood, which vi- 

 vidly and transparently shines through her ru- 

 bified gills ; so that now she begins to look lan- 

 guid and pale, her fins they fag, and her scales 

 by degrees lose their natural shining brightness ; 

 as also her regular and well-compos'd fabrick of 

 body, looks thin, lean, and discoloured : and her 

 head that grows big and disproportionable, as if 

 distemper'd and invaded with the rickets ; over 

 whose chaps hangs a callous substance, not much 

 unlike to a falcon's beak, which plainly denotes 

 her out of season, and as plainly as any thing 

 demonstrates her kippar. 



Now I come to nominate some eminent ri- 

 vers in England, that accommodate the angler 

 with the race of salmon. First, therefore, I 



