350 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AXD SPORT. 



should probably have drunk his health long before. 

 When he was hooked, instead of bolting right away 

 or doing as fish so treated generally do, he came at 

 once up to the top, lay flat on the surface of the 

 water and beat it till he Avas the centre of a circle 

 of foam. AVe soon found out the reason. He 

 was foul hooked ; missing the fly with his mouth, 

 it had caught him in the upper part of the tail as 

 he turned over, and having free and full power 

 over his strong body he soon proceeded to make 

 the most of it. Finding that this did no good, 

 he stopped to consider what was the matter, and 

 what proceedings were necessary to free himself 

 from the horrid insect which stuck so closely to 

 him and which made his tail so dreadfully uncom- 

 fortable. It seemed extraordinary to him that the 

 little thing he had jumped at should cause him so 

 much annoyance and be so difficult to shake off, and 

 he sank himself to the bottom of the pool and swam 

 slowly round it, rubbing himself violently, as is the 

 way of salmon, against the gravel and stones there. 

 This had no effect ; the pressure from some unseen 

 power from above continued to increase, and then 

 for the first time an inkling of the truth flashed 

 across his mind. He remembered that once, long 

 ago, when spending the early spring in the sea with 

 an aged relative of great experience, he had been told 

 of the possibility of such a thing happening to him, 

 and warned against eating his dinner without first 



