10 THE SALT OF MY LIFE 



low tide, or any time between. Since it is caught 

 at sea, as well as in rivers, it gives an even greater 

 range of situation than the salmon, whose wander- 

 ings in salt water are still a profound mystery. 

 We catch it only in our rivers, at a period when, 

 paradoxically enough, it is not feeding in the nor- 

 mal sense of the word ; during the remainder of the 

 year it is putting on flesh very rapidly, living 

 probably in water too deep for either trawlers or 

 hooks to disturb it. The bass, it is true, is not 

 taken in our estuaries at all times, but less mys- 

 tery attends its absence from the shallows, since 

 it is taken in the trawl almost all the year round. 

 As, moreover, it enters estuaries in pursuit of 

 small fishes, and not for spawning purposes, its 

 movements are less regular. Thus, in the River 

 Teign, in Devonshire, more detailed reference to 

 which will be found later, we did not, during the 

 five summers 1900-4, catch more than a few 

 small fish before the second or third week of June, 

 whereas in the present summer (1905) a resident 

 angler and his boatman made a catch weighing 

 in the aggregate 40 Ibs., largest fish41bs., during 

 the last week of May, the continued warm weather 

 of the previous fortnight having doubtless acce- 

 lerated the arrival of the brit shoals, to prey on 

 which the bass come inshore. 



The bass has been selected as a type of fish 

 that is many things to many men, but the same 



