28 SALMON FISHING 



can no longer regard ourselves as contemplative men 

 engaged in a placid recreation. We are more like 

 toreadors. Our lure acts upon the salmon exactly as 

 the red cloth acts upon the bull. It is a challenge. 

 It puts us on terms with him by enraging. This 

 doctrine must have caused grave misgiving in the 

 Elysian Fields. Dwells there the spirit of a peace- 

 loving statesman, alluded to in " Maud," who, while 

 reproving sports generally, fished for salmon. He 

 was wont to justify himself as sportsman by an 

 argument embodying the Don't-worry-Me emotion 

 which crystallised into the principle of the Man- 

 chester School. " When I put a fly or an artificial 

 minnow into the river, I am not,*" he said, " taking 

 any action against any living creature. If a fish 

 interferes with it, that is his affair." 



Thus, we have two reasons for going into the 

 problem. It seems dutiful to report the latest dis- 

 coveries to the ancestral spirits. Such of them as 

 had relations with salmon on the lines of Negative 

 Liberalism must be very unquiet at the thought that 

 they were no better than papistical heroes of the bull- 

 ring. Then, the subject is important to those of us 

 who are not given to probings of conscience about the 

 intractable question as to how sport stands in rela- 

 tion to ethics. If the thing at the end of the line is 

 not an appeal to appetite, but a challenge to a frolic 

 or a fight, we shall have to consider whether its shapes 

 and hues might not be made more piquant. 



Is it certain, then, that the salmon do not feed 

 when in fresh water ? 



