124 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



The salmons having spent their appointed time, and done this 

 natural duty in the fresh waters, they then haste to the sea before 

 winter, both the mcltcr and spawner : but if they be stopped 

 by flood-gates or wears, or lost in the fresh waters, then those so 

 left behind by degrees grow sick, and lean, and unseasonable, 

 and kipper ; that is to say, have bony gristles f^row out of their 

 lower chaps, not unlike a hawk's beak, which hinders their feed- 

 ing ; and in time such fish, so lefl behind, pine away and die. 

 It is observed, that he may live thus one year from the sea ; but 

 he then grows insipid and tasteless, and loses both his blood and 

 strength, and pines and dies the second year. And it is noted, 

 that those little salmons called skeggars, which abound in many 

 rivers relating to the sea, are bred by such sick salmons that 

 might not go to the sea ; and that though they abound, yet they 

 never thrive to any considerable bigness. 



But if the old salmon gets to the sea, then that gristle,* which 

 shows him to be a kipper, wears away, or is cast off, as the 

 eagle is said to cast his bill ; and he recovers his strength, and 

 comes next summer to the same river, if it be possible, to enjoy 

 the former pleasures that there possessed him ; for, as one has 

 wittily observed, he has, like some persons of honor and riches, 

 which have both their winter and summer houses, the fresh rivers 

 for summer, and the salt water for winter, to spend his life in ; 

 which is not, as Sir Francis Bacon hath observed in his History 

 of Life and Death, above ten years : and it is to be observed, that 

 though the salmon does grow big in the sea, yet he grows not fat 

 but in fresh rivers ; and it is observed, that the further they get 

 from the sea, they be both the fatter and better. 



Next, I shall tell you, that though they make very hard shifl 

 to get out of the fresh rivers into the sea ; yet they will make 

 harder shift to get out of the salt into the fresh rivers, to spawn, 

 or possess the pleasures that they have formerly found in them : 

 to which end, they will force themselves through flood-gates, or 



* This bony excrescence is the instrument provided by nature for the 

 melter or male salmon, with which to prepare the ground for the deposit 

 of spawn. The whole of the fore part of the head becomes more horny ; 

 and, after the spawning season is over, this /(j6 becomes more apparent from 

 the ill condition of the fish. See A^orth Country Angler, 8LC.—Am. Ed. 



