THE VALLEY OF THE KEN 57 



further warning the river suddenly came down in a 

 mighty, turbid wave, four or five feet in height, 

 carrying logs and brushwood with it, and the salmon 

 in the long pool beneath us leaped for joy. No 

 doubt this very sudden rise was caused by a severe 

 thunderstorm up the glen, the outskirts of which 

 we had experienced in the afternoon while shelter- 

 ing at Earlston. 



There is something stirring and invigorating in 

 a sudden flood such as this. There was little wonder 

 that the salmon should leap in their excitement. 

 For days the river had been dwindling and be- 

 coming ever more sluggish and stagnant ; the fish 

 lying low, suffering from depression, accentuated by 

 the thunder that brooded in the air. For a fish is 

 more sensitive to atmospheric conditions than pro- 

 bably any other creature. Even we human beings 

 feel oppressed for days together when the weather 

 is heavy and thundery — or "fiery," as they say in 

 Galloway — only to be shaken off when the electricity 

 in the supercharged atmosphere finds a vent and 

 retires to Mother Earth : and all our observation 

 tells us that fish are infinitely more sensitive to the 

 influence of meteorological changes than we. 



Here, then, was the flood, which our friends from 



