104 SALMON FISHING 



minnows may dart about at a quick rate ; but they 

 do not keep up the pace. They do not travel three 

 miles in an hour. Sometimes they catch and reflect 

 the sunlight, and so seem quivermgly active ; but 

 they are not for ever spinning. They do not spin. 

 Artificial minnows do all these things. They travel 

 for miles, and never, when in the water, rest ; and as 

 they cleave through the deep they rotate as busily 

 as a kite that has lost its tail. Why are the salmon 

 attracted by such singular apparitions ? My own 

 belief is that the fish take the things to be living 

 creatures in distress, and rush at them in obedience 

 to the instinct which impels the strong of any class 

 to kill or to persecute the weak. 



This conjecture will fall in either with the under- 

 standing that salmon, like trout, feed all the year 

 round, or with the theoiy that they feed only when 

 in the sea. The fish may be meaning to make a 

 meal of the strange thing that has swum into his 

 ken, or he may be meaning only to make an end of 

 it. In relation to the practical purposes of the 

 sportsman, that is a side issue. If only the fish rush 

 at his lures freely, he is not, for the moment, con- 

 cerned as to why they do so. 



For every loch there is a particular minnow 

 recommended by the gillies of the place; in some 

 cases there are two or three that they consider worthy 

 of trial. Many a river, in the same way, has its 

 special lures. It is probably rash to suppose that 

 the local traditions are superstitious. One cannot 

 but think that there must be experience behind 



