ITS MIGRATIONS. 215 



of spawning in the sea as the others are in lakes or even 

 deep pools : and this is shown very forcibly in the 

 strenuous efforts they make, at certain seasons, to 

 ascend our rivers. They will steer their way circum- 

 spectly through a labyrinth of stake-nets to the mouth ; 

 pushing onward, they will risk the manifold hazards of 

 the seine or long-drag; these escaped, they will glide 

 along, through pool and stream, under terror of new 

 contrivances the cairn-net, the spear or leister, and 

 angling lures of all descriptions ; now, they will stem 

 the rapid, now cleave the whirlpool, and dashing on- 

 wards, work up, with exposed fin, along the shallows. 

 No barrier but they strive to surmount; even the 

 crashing, thundering, and impracticable waterfall, headed 

 and hemmed in with rocks, is not left untried by these 

 adventurous explorers. And why all this persevering 

 ardour this scorn of danger ? Surely not for the pur- 

 pose, as some affirm, of getting rid merely of a few para- 

 sitical insects (monoculus piscinus) ? Why, but in obed- 

 ience of their powerful instincts, to accomplish those 

 duties which Nature hath made urgent, in order to 

 maintain and propagate the species ? 



These instincts, it is evident, lead the fish in question 

 to push far inland in order to deposit their spawn, and 

 imply, on their part, a dread of salt water, as prejudicial 

 to the hatching of the ova. How can it be otherwise ? 

 Is it on the space betwixt low and high- water mark that 

 the ova are presumed to be deposited, alternately left 

 bare and covered over by the retreating and flowing 

 tides subject, even if carefully buried, to be raked up 

 by the billows, and thrown resistlessly upon the beach, 

 deprived of the protection of the parent-fish, and ex- 

 posed to hazards of a hundred descriptions ? The idea 

 is quite irrational. Is it, then, beyond tide-reach, in 



