76 ENNIS NA SHIA. 



clearly defined as the course of an Indiaman 

 through the Atlantic Ocean, yet they are 

 just as (apparently) capricious. 



It has been said, that every salmon that 

 passes safely through the perils of a sea- 

 voyage returns, not only to its own river, 

 hut to the very brook in which it was first 

 spawned, and that, too, by the very road by 

 which its ancestors travelled to reach the 

 sea. Much of this is, of course, mere con- 

 jecture, but there are many interesting expe- 

 riments which make it probable. 



No amount of general knowledge or pis- 

 catorial talent will determine what this road 

 is through any lake. When found, it is 

 found for ever, for year after year it is the 

 same ; but no safe general rules can be given 

 for finding it. It is by no means necessarily 

 the shortest line between the outlets of the 

 lakes and the mouths of their mountain 

 tributaries. The fish, doubtless, have some 

 reason for passing to the right of a particular 

 rock or clump of weeds, rather than to the 

 left, for nothing relating to instinct is attri- 

 butable to caprice ; but what that reason 

 is, is subject to no general laws that we 

 know of. 



