PREFACE. IX 



which they have been hatched and remained in, 

 quite contented, for a whole year. They proceed 

 downward with the same sagacity as if they had 

 gone the road before, and at last arrive at an en- 

 tire change of water, and where food is so plen- 

 tiful that they can eat as fast as their rapacious 

 stomachs can digest ; and by that means, in a 

 couple of months after enjoying these fine pas- 

 tures, they have grown so large and fat that 

 necessity compels them to return to their poor 

 highland rivers again. 



But a vicious law, said to be for the protection 

 of salmon fisheries, has allowed the road by which 

 they return to be barricaded with wood and net- 

 work ; so that they find returning impossible. To 

 be sure, they saw these apparatuses when they 

 were going down the rivers ; but at that time they 

 were so small that, with the exception of an occa- 

 sional cartload of them that happened to fall into 

 pools about the stake net, and were left high 

 and dry or eaten by gulls and other waterfowl, 

 they went easily through the meshes of the net. 

 But when they returned it was quite a different 

 thing, for now they had grown to such a size that 

 they found their progress fairly arrested ; and when 

 searching for a passage of any kind by which they 

 might pass, at last they find a small passage a few 



