FISHING AT HOME AND ABROAD 

 that now ascend them, much less could it have sufficed for the enormous 

 shoals which used to invade them long ago. 



This is what I have referred to as the unpopular view of this question. 

 The popular opinion is that maintained by many good anglers and prac- 

 tically by all professional fishermen and gillies. Salmon, they say, *' come 

 on the feed," just as trout and other fresh-water fish do. If you remark 

 upon the fact that it is virtually impossible to find a salmon in a river 

 with anything in its stomach or intestines, you are met with the assertion 

 that salmon have the power of ejecting food so soon as they feel the hook. 

 If you press the point that salmon taken in the sea are generally distended 

 with food (Dr Kingston Barton took six full-sized herrings from the 

 stomach of a salmon taken off Montrose*), the answer will be — " Weel, 

 I ken naethin' aboot that," or some similarly disparaging observation. 



Of course the most plausible argument, and the one most difficult to 

 confute, is based on the undoubted fact that salmon will take minnows, 

 prawns, worms and other baits in fresh water. It can scarcely be doubted 

 that, in exceptional cases, they do seize these objects with the intention 

 of eating them; but my opinion remains unshaken that the vast majority 

 of salmon which take a fly or other moving lure (and how very many 

 fish refuse to do so) are not impelled by hunger or appetite, but simply by 

 a predacious impulse or habit similar to that which causes a terrier to 

 kill a score of rats without the faintest desire or intention of devouring one 

 of thena. 



We must leave it at that, content with the reflection that, whereas a trout 

 fisher not only must know that trout are feeding before he can hope to 

 do execution among them, but also it behoves him to ascertain what they 

 are feeding on, a salmon fisher runs an equal chance of success, whether 

 he is a believer or a sceptic about salmon feeding in fresh water. 



'Journal of Anatomy and Physiology, vol. xxxiv. 



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