DECEMBER 297 



has maintained its hold upon a nation to whom it was 

 once presented interwoven with falsehoods which were 

 an affront to intelligence of the most moderate order. 



XLVIII 



Every salmon-fisher must be familiar with those still 

 autumn days when the objects of his pursuit The Food of 

 seem to be competing with each other in otters 

 fantastic forms of leaping. Flinging themselves into 

 the air, they come down anyhow head first, tail first, 

 broadside, or merely in that inglorious fashion known 

 to schoolboys as ' a gutter.' How fitly, one reflects, was 

 this most chivalrous of fishes named Salmo the salient 

 or leaping creature. Many other kinds of fishes, both 

 marine and fresh- water, leap occasionally ; but none so 

 frequently and persistently as the salmon. He cannot 

 rest long in a pool without throwing himself into the air 

 and falling back Avith resounding splash, apparently in 

 sheer exultation and exuberance of energy. One writer 

 has followed another in explaining this habit as being 

 due to desperate attempts on the part of the fish to rid 

 itself of parasites, but the salmon leaps just as often 

 after the marine parasites tide-lice, etc. have dropped 

 off, sickened by the fresh water, and before the river 

 copepods have attacked its gills, as it does at any other 

 time. Neither is it the outcome of juvenile lighthearted- 

 ness, seeing that the ponderous kipper of twenty or 

 thirty pounds weight is just as prone to saltatory feats 

 as any four-pound grilse. Only one thing about it com- 

 mands the assent of every experienced angler, namely, 



