XLIV 

 SALMON 



"Now, safe the stately sawmont sail, 

 And trouts be-dropped wi' crimson hail, 

 Since dark in death's fish creel we wail 

 Tarn Samson dead." 



BURNS. 



A T the tail of a great pool, some salmon : the whole life story thus 



two hundred yards above the passing under his eye. The fish are 



bridge, the Tweed takes a sudden large. Autumn fish are in the main 



bend, and comes on with a gentle, large. They are thought to be the 



shallow flow. The winter spate slackens older and maturer salmon. They look 



in the pool, spends its forces on the larger, because so excellently well 



opposite bank, and enters on the filled up. If they have come straight 



straight with a reduced eroding power, from the sea, they are straight from 



On some late September or October the feast. The latest meal of whiting 



day the rumour goes round that the or herring may be in process of digestion, 



fish are up. The event may have The females are distended with roe. 



been expected for weeks. The Tweed Ripe fish, and ready to spawn, are they 



has a habit of running at its summer which dot the bottom of the straight 



level far into the autumn. Salmon run between the pool and the bridge, 



linger in the brackish water about The males fight for possession. Then 



Berwick, pause in the deep and the pairing comes. Whether the female 



broad sweep by Dryburgh and Kelso, is always the willing spoil of the victor 



or by Melrose Abbey, before passing may be open to question. Mating 



Abbotsford to enter the narrow reach seems sometimes to take place in the 



between the hills. Deceived by a sea. Salmon enter the river in pairs, 



freshlet, they may have been huddling This arrangement may well be dis- 



under the dyke, only some two miles turbed : the stronger may still fight 



down, a prey to the vilest form of and win. Over the last groove in 



poaching. which the eggs have been placed the 



Over the parapet the lieges from tail swishes the gravel. The work 



the near village command the lively of nesting being accomplished, the 



scene below. No Tweed-side man exhausted workers drop down to the 



need be told about the habits of pool below ; male and female to separ- 



