48 SALMON FISHING 



necessary to assume that when a salmon rises at a fly, 

 or seizes a sunken bait, he is, occasionally at least, re- 

 peating the action of remote progenitors that fed and 

 flourished in the very pools where we are seeking sport? 



The appetite of his eye may be greater than that 

 of his palate ; it may be a disembodied impulse, 

 illusory ; perhaps it arises in racial reminiscence rather 

 than in actual need. Still, appetite of some kind, 

 true or false, it does really seem to be. Mr. Huxley, 

 who viewed the salmon broadly, and not in their 

 habits as they live for sportsmen, probably did not 

 know that as a rule they rise particularly well at and 

 about sundown. The possibility that the fish have 

 a regular hour for feeding, or trying to feed, is con- 

 ceivable ; but the theory that they have a regular hour 

 for being in a rage could be accepted only as part of 

 a revelation that universal life is a grotesque comedy. 



The possibility that the fish rise from curiosity 

 or in playfulness is not so easily disposed of. Certain 

 animals, such as rabbits in the evening, frolic at 

 regular times, and it is conceivable that salmon may 

 have a similar wont. On the other hand, trout, 

 which late in spring and throughout the summer 

 rise particularly well in the evening, rise then, it is 

 known, to feed ; trout and salmon are kin ; and it is 

 not easy to believe that while one set of fish are 

 rising to feed the other set are rising in frolic only. 



All the considerations weighed, it does seem ap- 

 proximately certain that, though there may not be 

 good digestion to wait on appetite, the salmon, 

 when he rises, usually means to eat. 



