LEAP OF THE SALMON 241 



Salmon is from the pen of Dr. Robert T. Morris, whose oppor- 

 tunities for observing and photographing the scenes he 

 describes have been of the best : l 



"It is a most impressive and inspiring sight to watch the 

 untamed Salmon on a wild river making his display of strength 

 and agility in surmounting a crashing torrent that threatens 

 with instant death anything that dares to approach its mad 

 tumult of waters. A Salmon can make his way upward 

 through a sheer fall of water so long as the water is in a 

 solid mass, but the moment that it becomes admixed with 

 air the white water no longer gives a sufficiently firm hold for 

 the broad caudal fin, and the Salmon must leap entirely over 

 the fall. There are pretty well authenticated instances of 

 Salmon clearing a fall of twenty feet. I have measured leaps 

 to nearly this length on falls where almost every Salmon that 

 flew through the air over the fall fairly took one's breath 

 away, and they were going up at the rate of three or four to 

 the minute at that. I know of nothing short of watching 

 a house on fire that is of more engaging interest than watch- 

 ing the Salmon throwing themselves over wicked waters. 

 The Salmon must have some advantages, to be sure, for 

 accomplishing their best feats. If the water beneath a fall 

 is much broken with rocks and rapids a fish cannot gain suffi- 

 cient momentum and velocity for hurling himself far into the 

 air; but given a deep and fairly quiet pool to start from, 

 and the Salmon look more like great birds than like fish as 



i 



they sail upward. One can sometimes find a place to stand 

 at the edge of a fall, and if he remain quiet for a few moments 



1 Country Life magazine, 1903, p. 356. 



