SALMON LEAPS. 83 



even in the brute creation, of aspiring too high, and of 

 the truth of the doctrine that the most elevated 

 stations are not necessarily the most happy or 

 secure. 



1 ' Often to our comfort shall we find . 

 The sharded beetle in a safer hole, 

 Than is the full-winged eagle." 



'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 

 propagate a numerous and respectable progeny, or at 

 the least have 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 



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