LIFE HISTORY AND HABITS 



times. In other words, during long years I had 

 formed a brain-track corresponding to certain 

 physical motions, and this persisted in operating 

 even when it was absolutely useless. It was on 

 reflecting on this matter one day on a salmon river 

 that the similarity of this action, and that of the 

 salmon taking the fly, struck me. The salmon has 

 only two years of habit formation while I have 

 twenty, but on the other hand I had thousands of 

 other impressions to obliterate it where the salmon 

 had only a few. No doubt illustrations in their 

 own experience will occur to every reader of mo- 

 tions formed by habits of long standing which 

 persist after their use has disappeared. Of course 

 the human organism is complex, while the fish is 

 low in the scale, having no thinking or reflective 

 centres in its brain. It is natural that fixed habits 

 should be more persistent in the fish. This is my 

 explanation for the salmon taking the fly when 

 he cannot digest it. When he returns to fresh 

 water from his stay at the sea the stomach im- 

 mediately begins to shrink and loses the power of 

 digestion entirely. This is to make room for 

 the growing egg or melt-sack in the body cavity. 

 It is always found that salmon ship best if not 

 cleaned, whereas other fish keep longer if they are 



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