THE SALMON. 169 



and bringing the saltant powers of its muscles into requisition, it bounds 

 beyond the waters' surface in an obliquely vertical direction, a distance 

 double that of 6ft. if it is necessary that it should do so. I have seen a 

 grilse, and not a very large one, jump upwards and forwards somewhat 

 obliquely the length I and another calculated of my fishing rod, that 

 is 17ft. Mr. Young and other observant authorities told me, that before 

 a portion of the mass of rock which, in the course of the large Shin 

 waterfall was blasted, its first ledge was 16ft. from the surface of the 

 water when the river was at its average height. Salmon could spring 

 into the water on this ledge at a bound, and then, stemming the arch- 

 formed cataract, they would ascend to the upper pools." The veracity 

 of Mr. Fitzgibbon is unimpeachable, and I am persuaded that his expe- 

 rience is not exceptional. The idea that the fish took its tail in its mouth 

 may have arisen from the bow-like position it assumes in falling again. 

 This position, it must be borne in mind, is, however, natural. When a 

 youth jumps from a height his legs, if bent completely under him at the 

 moment of his leaving the point from which he springs, invariably 

 straighten ere he reaches the ground by their own weight, or rather by 

 the attraction of gravitation. Thus is it with the salmon, only in that 

 case the head and tail are drawn water- wards first. Dr. Fleming has 

 said in his evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons that 

 he had seen a salmon spring over a fall of 30ft. Credat, &c. Bye the 

 way, Ansonius has prettily described the springing of a salmon : 



Nor will I pass the glittering' salmon by. 

 With crimson flesh w thin of spark. in^ dye. 

 A hidden impulse first disturbs the stream 

 That .silent flows; the upward darts the gleam 

 At midd e wa er ; and the bounding fish 

 Strikes with h;s quivering tail in earnest wish 

 To dart aloft. 



Certain it is, that some prodigious leaps are from time to time made, 

 and in many cases the fish meet their deaths in their endeavours. 

 This is so at the Falls of Kilmorack on the Bauly in Inverness-shire, 

 where the peasantry are in the habit of laying branches of trees 

 to intercept the fish as they fall from the unavailing spring. According 

 to Harting, in his work "The Sea and its Living Wonders," the 

 same practice obtains at the cataract of the Liffey in Ireland. Mr. 

 Mudie in the " British Naturalist " mentions in this connection a curious 

 incident which the Frasers of Lovat used to astonish their guests with, 

 viz., the voluntary cooking of a salmon. A kettle of boiling water was 

 placed at the side of the fall selected close to the water, and the company 

 waited till a salmon fell into the cauldron and was thus boiled in their 

 presence. The affair seems possible, but hardly probable. I, for one, 

 should not like to wait for my dinner till such a thing occurred. Mr. 



