CHAPTER XXV 



SALMON OF THE LINN OF DEE 



IT is at a point some seventy miles — by water — ^west of 

 the North Sea that the Dee flows through a narrow rocky 

 gorge, so narrow that in places it is possible to leap from 

 bank to bank. For two hundred yards or so a succession of 

 rapids alternate with small deep hollows, and at the foot of 

 the linn is a pool of such depth that even when the water 

 runs low and clear the bottom is scarcely visible. Year 

 after year the river is imperceptibly, though surely, eating 

 into its granite channel, and one can see deep hollows formed 

 in the solid rock by the continual grinding motion of stones 

 which the water swirled round in its vortex. Some of these 

 hollows are at such a height above the present level of the 

 river that this scouring action of the stones now takes place 

 only when the water is in spate. One small and deep 

 hole is particularly noticeable, for at the bottom it still 

 contains the two rounded stones which formed it in earlier 

 limes. 



Conditions at the linn are all against the successful pas- 

 sage of the salmon, and there is a certain irony in the fact 

 that the last fall is the one which is the most formidable, and 

 which indeed proves insurmountable to a considerable propor- 

 tion of the fish. I have watched, day after day, the attempts 

 of the salmon to conquer this last obstacle, and I must confess 

 that not a single fish during that time succeeded in forcing 

 a passage to the comparatively calm waters above. That 

 many do succeed is an undisputed fact, for the river above 

 the linn holds salmon in plenty, but they probably pass the 



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