64 GLIMPSES OF NATURE. 



arid neighbours after a holiday-season, their trip to 

 the sea has worked wonders. They went to the sea, 

 smolts, trifling in size : they return as grilse, weigh- 

 ing, it may be, four or five pounds, having, through 

 the luxurious feeding they have enjoyed in the ocean, 

 become young salmon, able to produce eggs. 



For this purpose, indeed, the grilse has returned to 

 its river, and many fishers hold that it never returns 

 to any river save that which gave it birth. This, 

 indeed, was Frank Buckland's own opinion : but one 

 may venture to think that the returning grilse or 

 salmon, while, as a rule, entering its native river, 

 does not invariably choose its original waters. After 

 spawning, the grilse goes back to the sea in the winter 

 or spring, and, on its next visit to the river, appears 

 before us as the salmon. Year by year it will increase 

 in size, until it may attain the dimensions of the 

 " forty-pounder " you heard the fishermen speak of 

 the other day. Salmon have been caught weighing 

 seventy pounds ; but this was, no doubt, a giant of 

 its tribe, such as we seldom see. 



