Parasites, Diseases and Enemies. 259 



"woolly germs." He followed the "prescription" and 

 was so well pleased that he sent for me twice again for 

 professional advice and there is nothing which the am- 

 ateur fishctilturist thinks he needs less than professional 

 advice. He seems to think that because he is a lover of 

 trout or an angler he has been especially endowed with 

 a capacity for the business and can go ahead on 

 some original plan. He makes expensive mistakes and 

 learns in that very dear school. It is a singular thing 

 that a man who shoots and fishes a little thinks he 

 knows more of these things than an old woodsman, 

 and flatters himself that he has the best gun ever made 

 and the best dog ever whelped, and that he is a Daniel 

 Boone, Davy Crockett and Natty Bumpo condensed 

 into one. This is a comfortable and satisfactory belief, 

 but exceedingly expensive when he goes unaided into 

 fishculture, and I speak from a memory of many costly 

 failures when there was no one to instruct. The advice 

 of Huxley is excellent and bears out what has been 

 said in previous chapters. 



FISH THAT DIE AFTER SPAWNING. 



The salmon fishermen of our western coast believe 

 that their species of salmon spawn but once and die. 

 Some shad fishermen on the Hudson River have the 

 same belief. Because a great majority die, and on the 

 Pacific coast line the shores with their dead, they be- 

 lieve that all die after spawning. I don't believe any 

 such thing. Spawning salmon of from seventy to one 

 hundred pounds have been taken in our rivers empty- 

 ing into the Pacific, and it is difficult to believe that 

 this was their first trip to the spawning grounds. A 



