126 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



This Michael Drayton tells you of this leap or summersault 

 of the salmon.* 



And next I shall tell you, that it is ohserved by Gesner and 

 others, that there is no better salmon than in England ;f and that 

 though some of our northern counties have as fat and as large as 

 the river Thames, yet none are of so excellent a taste. 



And as I have told you that Sir Francis Bacon observes, the 

 age of a salmon exceeds not ten years ; so let me next tell you, 

 that his growth is very sudden : it is said, that after he is got into 



traditionary lore. Drayton has been held in high estimation by those who 

 have taken the trouble to look behind his unpromising surface. His sonnets 

 are many of them very fine. He was sometimes, by way of compliment, 

 called Poet Laureate, but Ben Jonson held the office. — Am. Ed. 



* The perseverance of salmon in making their way from the sea to a 

 proper place for the deposit of their spawn is very remarkable. They 

 will ascend a river for hundreds of miles, swimming at the rate of thirty 

 miles an hour, and leaping, as Drayton describes them, over the falls. The 

 extent of their spring scarcely reaches fourteen feet at the furthest, but 

 they instinctively avail themselves of every assistance the bed of the stream 

 affords ; and in some instances artificial stairways, as it were, have been 

 constructed to help their ascent, which aid they eagerly adopt. 



Salmon pass by different names in their progress from the ova to their 

 adult state ; and, of course, these names vary in different places. Those 

 adopted by Yarrell zse, pink for the salmon of the first year; smolt for 

 those of the second year, until they go to sea ; in the autumn of the second 

 year, salmon peal or grilse ; and afterwards the adult or salmon proper. 

 It is a curious, but ascertained fact, that this fish propagates before it 

 reaches maturity, and the variety of their produce suggests too many 

 questions to be treated here. Some have thought that the parr also is 

 the produce of the salmon. — Am. Ed. 



f Sir J. Hawkins says that the largest salmon ever taken in England 

 was caught in April, 1789; " it measured upwards of four feet in length, 

 three feet around the body at the thickest part, and weighed nearly seventy 

 pounds." Hofland speaks of a salmon weighing eighty pounds ; and Stod- 

 dart, in his Art of Angling, says that Sir Humphrey Davy caught, after a 

 severe struggle, a salmon weighing forty-two pounds. Hofland, also, tells 

 a story of a Scotch Highlander, who, fishing in the river Arve, struck a 

 salmon, which he played with great patience and exertion until the night 

 fell and the fish sulked at the bottom. The indomitable angler, taking the 

 line in his mouth, lay down and slept on tlie bank until three in the morn- 

 in"-; when some work-people coming that way aroused him, and the fish 

 being again started was soon secured. It weighed seventy-three pounds ! — 

 Am. Ed. 



