THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 123 



CHAPTER VII. 



Observations of the Salmon, with Directions how to fish for him. 

 PiscATOR. The salmon* is accounted the kingr of fresh- water 



& 



fish ; and is ever bred in rivers relating to the sea, yet so high 

 or far from it as admits of no tincture of salt or brackishness. 

 He is said to breed or cast his spawn, in most rivers, in the month 

 of August ; some say that then they dig a hole or grave in a 

 safe place in the gravel, and there place their eggs or spawn, 

 after the melter has done his natural office, and then hide it most 

 cunningly, and cover it over with gravel and stones ; and then 

 leave it to their Creator's protection, who, by a gentle heat which 

 he infuses into that cold element, makes it brood and beget life 

 in the spawn, and to become samlets early in the next spring 

 following. 



* Salmo Salar. It is much to be regretted that this noble fish has 

 disappeared from the waters ordinarily within the reach of the angler of 

 the United States. There are some, however, sufficiently enthusiastic to 

 penetrate the woods of Maine, Nova Scotia, and Canada, finding a rich 

 reward for their pains, for certainly, of all angling, taking salmon with the 

 fly bears the bell. The method pursued differs very little from that in 

 Great Britain or Ireland ; and the reader would have far less satisfaction in 

 such brief remarks as could be made here, than by turning to the delightful 

 pages of Sir Humphrey Davy's Salmonia, Hansard's Trout and Salmon 

 Fishiyig in Wales, Hofland's British Angler's Guide, or The Fly-Fisher's 

 Text Book, by South (Chitty). For a more accurate knowledge of the 

 salmon's habits, he should turn to Yarrell's British Fishes, and especially 

 to Scrope's elegant work. Days and A'ights of Salmon Fishing, in which, 

 as has been said before, a most careful series of experiments on the breed- 

 ing of salmon is minutely detailed and admirably illustrated. It was my 

 intention to give from these and other authors a running commentary, 

 emendating our author's brief and not very accurate account ; but on at- 

 tempting it I found it not possible to do it satisfactorily, unless by exceed- 

 ing very far the proper limits of our book, and it is better to point out the 

 sources where the reader may find the information he desires given fully 

 a&d well. — Am. Ed. 



