262 THE TROUT 



When the sea-trout are running inland, so full are 

 they of vigour and vitality, that they come com- 

 placently to the very door of the Gastronomer located 

 in the far interior. Drawing less water than the 

 bulky salmon, they rush straight up river and 

 streamlet without a check, unless the ascent is 

 barred by some impracticable cataract. They make 

 a journey of a hundred miles or more in less than a 

 couple of days, and you may take them still shining 

 in their silvery sheathing among the small brown 

 trout in the moorland burn. Of course when you land 

 the leviathan in these embarrassing circumstances 

 he should be inspected before being cooked. He 

 may have been cramped and confined for weeks in 

 the tiny pool, after the subsidence of some violent 

 spate, like the hippopotamuses, crocodiles, and minor 

 eccentricities which Baker describes as observing 

 armed neutrality in some deep reach of the Atbara, 

 when after the descent of the Abyssinian floods half 

 the abounding river has been drawn up by the 

 blazing sun and the other half swallowed in the thirsty 

 sands. For the sprightly sea-trout, in these untoward 

 and insanitary surroundings, falls off fast in flesh and 

 condition, and becomes the most poverty-stricken of 

 finny creatures. 



As to the Salmo ferox^ he gives noble sport, but 



