THE LIFE OF THE SALMON 241 



water, and thus their destruction by the salmon may be 

 regarded as natural. 



THE SUSTENANCE OF SALMON 



Salmon, it has been affirmed, when in fresh water, 

 live on their cream that is, the adipose matter distributed 

 through their body until spawning operations are over, 

 even as the hibernating fish live on their fat until their 

 winter is past. The loss of the appetite of the salmon is 

 natural when the object of their visit to fresh water is 

 remembered that is, to spawn. The insect and fish life 

 of a river is insufficient to sustain an inrush of healthy 

 feeding salmon with appetites such as are common to these 

 fish when in salt water ; hence if their appetites continued 

 all living creatures in the fresh waters of the salmon river 

 might possibly be destroyed, and the salmon would not, in 

 succeeding years, leave the salt water, where food is plentiful, 

 and enter an empty river, however strong their spawning 

 instincts, and for this reason an appetite would imply a 

 necessity for food, which food would in such a case be 

 unobtainable. 



THE AUTHOR'S THEORY 



What, then, causes them to pursue and seize moving 

 objects prior to spawning ? 



It has been shown that the guiding influence of their 

 life is instinct, and instinct in this case makes them destruc- 

 tive. A similar impulse pervades all Nature, and teaches 

 the parent to destroy or to drive off any creatures that 

 are likely to endanger the safety of its young. Salmon 

 enter fresh water for one purpose alone, and instinct teaches 

 them that all moving inhabitants of fresh water constitute 

 a future danger to the well-being of the defenceless young 

 which they must leave behind. 



17 



