30 SALMON FISHING 



man's opinion, and endeavours to explain it away. 

 " Fishermen," he says, " never seem to grasp the fact 

 how few fish come to the temptation of a bait com- 

 pared with the number of fish that may have the bait 

 proffered to them." Sir Herbert Maxwell, also, is 

 assured that when they leave the sea salmon become 

 abstinent from food. He enforces the doctrine by 

 an entertaining analogy. While studying " Salmon 

 and Sea Trout " in The Anglers' Library, we are to 

 imagine him at his writing-table. What would he 

 do if he beheld a strange and brilliant creature 

 flitting about the room ? " Why," says he, " I 

 should rise, and, being furnished with a serviceable 

 pair of hands, should employ them for purposes of 

 capture, or try and knock the intruder down with 

 my hat, though the last idea that would enter my 

 brain would be to eat the unfamiliar object. All 

 this, provided the strange creature were not so 

 big as to cause me alarm, in which case I should 

 either leave the room or ring for the footman. Well, 

 the salmon acts in a precisely similar way. He, too, 

 rises, for the purpose of capture ; but, having neither 

 hands to grasp withal, nor a hat to fling over the 

 stranger, he either snaps at it with his mouth, or tries 

 to flap it with his tail, provided the said stranger is 

 not too big to cause him alarm. If it is, having no 

 bell to ring, he simply lies low." 



Such is the testimony on one side of the question. 

 The other side, the view of the sportsmen whom 

 Dr. Barton finds it so hard to convince, is modestly 

 presented by Major Traherne. He mentions that 



