SALMON LEAP. 93 



Tis the highest trees are shaken most. ; the highest 

 hills are most exposed to the levin-flash. And had 

 that trout but observed the " modus in rebus" and 

 stayed quietly in his river, he might have lived to pro- 

 pagate a numerous and respectable progeny, or at the 

 least haye served the laudable end of gratifying the 

 angler. 



And here, while on this subject, I may conveniently 

 reply to a question, which I have had put to me, anent 

 the capacity of salmon for overcoming the difficulties 

 which they must frequently meet with on their way to 

 the spawning bed. It is quite possible that I may 

 have at times overstated the height of different falls, 

 for nothing is more easy than to be deceived in such a 

 matter ; and a rough guess, made from recollection, 

 never can ensure perfect accuracy ; nevertheless, these 

 fish do possess a marvellous power of overcoming such 

 difficulties. Though a salmon cannot leap sheer out 

 of the water more than six, or perhaps eight feet, this 

 has nothing to do with the height of a fall he may 

 surmount. In the latter case he is still in his own 

 element ; he, as it were, runs up the water, generally 

 in a direction slanting across the fall, and it would be 

 difficult to say exactly how high he could ascend in 

 this manner. 



Nets and wicker baskets are frequently put at the 

 head of falls twenty feet high, to catch the fish as they 

 ascend. There is a river, the name of which however 

 I do not recollect, where the fish are caught by holes 

 made in the rocks at the falls, in which the fish drop, 

 having overshot the mark in their ascent. And there 

 is a tradition connected with the falls of Kilmhorach, 

 to the effect that a salmon was once boiled alive there; 

 the fish having rushed up the fall, and thrown itself by 



