SALMOl^^IDiE. 35 



and almost shapeless. Fortunate are those which have vital- 

 ity enough left to be able to return to the sea. Indeed, so 

 great is the mortality that it has been generally believed that 

 they never return at all. 



Salmon do not eat while on their travels ; or if perchance 

 they do feed at long intervals (as setting hens do when they 

 come . off their nests betimes), they digest so rapidly that 

 nothing has been found in their stomachs in quantity suffi- 

 cient to determine what constitutes their favorite bill-of-fare. 

 It is only when resting in the occasional pools that they take 

 the angler's lure. At mouths of rivers, however, on the very 

 threshold of their departure for the upper waters, they will 

 take bait and red worms with avidity. 



VII. 



Anxiously does the fisherman await the salmon's advent. 

 Twice a day the tide flows in and fills the bed of the river for 

 half-a-mile from its mouth, and when the ebb has followed he 

 carefully scans the water as it flows limpid and fresh from its 

 fountain-head. In the clear depths where the current has 

 worn a channel or hoUowed out a trough, close to the bottom 

 he descries an object, motionless and scarcely distinguishable 

 from the oblong stones on which it lies. If he toss a bait in 

 there gently, just above it, ten to one he will hook a salmon ! 

 The fish has not yet lost his appetite for substantial food ; 

 cast a fly over him, and it is doubtful if he even rises. Pitch 

 a stone at him, and he will quickly change his base, a little 

 surprised — perhaps move a rod ftirther up the channel ; but 

 he will not run. He feels somewhat strange ; he has just 

 come in from a tour of the Atlantic, and is not yet accus- 

 tomed to his new quarters. He is unsophisticated — ^they 

 don't throw stones or skitter flies down in the recesses of the 

 Atlantic. He has . never heard of the treasons and strata- 

 gems that beset the journey of the river. Well, he will learn 

 betimes. We will give him a lesson to-morrow, further w'p 



