64 THE NATURAL HISTORY AND HABITS 



Yes, they want a bright sun and warm water, and 

 that alone gives us heavy, well-shaped, and fine- 

 looking fish. We often see in the month of August 

 that grilses in general are less than they are in July, 

 but that entirely depends on the season, for if August 

 be warm and dry, the grilses are fine and large, but if 

 cold and wet the case is quite the contrary. 



When grilses leave the sea for the rivers, they 

 generally do so in bands, the same as they do when 

 going down smolts, and it is likely they continue in 

 company of each other throughout their feeding sea- 

 son ; and when we ,see a number of them going up 

 together, we invariably find that they have a leader, 

 for one of the largest is sure to be first and all the 

 others follow in the tract ; and often we find, although 

 not always, that an old salmon or two lead the way to 

 a number of grilses, and that their travel onward is 

 regular and steady, and, unless when frightened by 

 something or other, we never see one pass another in 

 their march, for every thing is regular, and in the 

 most trained-like order. They would continue in 

 these regular bands on to their river, were it not that 

 they are, time after time, scattered by their natural 

 enemies in firths and estuaries ; these enemies watch 

 their progress on, and feed on them as they pass, and 

 scatter the remainder to and fro throughout the 

 waters, and as these enemies, generally haunt the deep 

 waters, the grilses run on the shallow sides, where 

 these monsters, from their size, have not the ability to 

 follow them. But when they are forced to run on 

 the shallows and near the land sides to avoid these 

 monsters of the deep, where is the advantage? for 

 they are just leaping out of the frying-pan into the 

 fire; the band is running different ways to escape 

 from a seal or some such enemy, but while doing so 

 they all land among the meshes of some vile invention 



