FISHING AT HOME AND ABROAD 

 other season. And so it is with mammals — the stag does not go courting 

 till his antlers are at their prime; but from the moment a salmon quits 

 the ocean to repair to the connubial shallows, it steadily deteriorates in 

 appearance until it becomes positively unsightly. The head of the male 

 lengthens and coarsens; his silvery coat tarnishes to dirty red and brown, 

 the scales becoming half -buried in slime. The change in the female fish 

 is even worse. There is no more flagrant case in nature of corruptio 

 optimi pessimi, for, as a " baggit," she loses all her graceful shape, and her 

 shiny sides and snowy underparts become overspread with a disagreeable 

 sooty stain, almost black in some places. 



One might go prosing about salmon -fishing to an indefinite length 

 so powerful is the spell it casts over its votaries; but a sense of propor- 

 tion restrains me, and I must pass on to discuss the lesser nobility among 

 the Salmonidte. I can think of no more fitting close to this chapter than 

 certain lines which I picked up when I was a boy, whence or by whom I 

 know not, but I have left boyhood so far behind that the question of copy- 

 right cannot arise. 



SAUMON. 



Air — " Cauld kail in Aberdeen." 



There's baddies in tbe Firtb o' Forth, 



There's turbot big and sma', man ; 

 There's flukes, though they're but little worth, 



There's caller ou'* and a', man. 

 But fish in shell or fish in scale 



Whate'er ye like *t to ca', man, 

 There's nane can doot the very walet 



O* fishes is a saumon. 



There's herrin' catch'd aboot Dunbar, 



An' whitin's aff Skateraw, man ; 

 But wha sae daft as to compare 



The like o' them to saumon? 

 The English folk like whitin's best, 



The Dutch eat herrin' raw, man ; 

 But ilka body to his taste — 



An' mine's content wi' saumon. 



'Fresh Oysters. Rapid and recent as are the changes, social, commercial and other, that have swept away ancient 

 landmarks and immemorial customs, they have not yet prevailed against the Newhaven fish-wives. 

 tThe best, the pick. 



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