JUNE 137 



In good sooth, the river trout, a proper gallant in 

 Hampshire chalk stream or Highland loch, can be 

 reckoned but a gluttonous pirate, bad as any pike, in a 

 salmon river. There be some credulous persons, prone 

 to arguing from the unknown to conclusions none the 

 less positive because they are grounded upon no vestige 

 of evidence, who conceive and declare that salmon, 

 especially in the kelt stage, devour their own young. It 

 matters no whit to these wise people that in no single 

 instance has parr or smolt been found within the stomach 

 of a salmon in fresh water. Kelts, say they, are voracious- 

 looking creatures; no animal with such a cast of coun- 

 tenance, such a lean carcass, and such powerful jaws 

 withal, could help devouring any small fish that came 

 its way. But men with most experience of salmon and 

 their ways smile at the idea of salmon feeding in fresh 

 water. Let one who, from his armchair in Kensington, 

 or punt in fruitful Thames, declares that it is not in 

 piscine nature that they should abstain from food after 

 leaving the sea let him, I say, spend a few weeks on 

 the banks of a glacier-nourished, snow-fed torrent in 

 Norway, and afterwards declare what there is therein for 

 salmon to feed on, if they would and could. 



Well, as I have said, we have arrived too early, yet is 

 our lot not wholly without alleviation. Let alone the 

 flowers, budding, blossoming, and fading at express speed 

 in these long hours of sunshine flowers which alone 

 would repay the voyage over the restless North Sea 

 there are just enough fish stirring to fill one with alter- 

 nate hope and despair. Two, notably, of grand propor- 

 tions, took up their station some days ago at the tail of 

 Aarnhoe foss pool, on the very brink of a formidable 



