THE SALMON'S JOURNEY 391 



have pulled out one or two spent fish, lean and lank, and in 

 a sense unshapely and ugly. It seems likely that the fish 

 which have exhausted themselves in spawning lose the 

 native instinct with the interest in life. They may seek the 

 sea, to be renovated with silver scales and perhaps again 

 after a while to attain a perfection, fitting them for maternity, 

 or they may stay half alive in the river with their bright 

 cleanliness and firm outlines departed. Even the man who 

 has never thrown a line can imagine the extreme delight of the 

 fisher who has endured days of vain casting in January when 

 'winds and ways are foul,' who has felt the full excitement of 

 striking a big fish, only to land that unfishlike thing, a spent 

 salmon, and who at last sees the silver gleam and feels the 

 kick of a good fresh-run fish regenerated in the sea, and to 

 know it to be the forerunner of many another. From Sligo 

 to Scandinavia there is no sporting event to rival this. 



The salmon is the king of fish, and his ways are more 

 noble than those of his subjects in river or sea. Very few 

 fish come much under regular observation apart from their 

 readiness or reluctance to take the fly or swallow the bait. 

 But no one, however little a fisherman, should fail, if the 

 chance offers, to watch trout at spawning-time. Autumn is 

 their spring. They spawn in the autumn months and at the 

 time when the ewes of the Dorset Horn sheep have their 

 young. The persistent, careful and unchanged action of the 

 fish in preparing the bed for the spawn seems to bring them 

 into the common scheme of things. They become not so 

 much unlike the moths who lay their eggs in the bark or 

 the birds that make soft places for their eggs. One might 

 compare them with the wild duck or the rabbit. They do 

 not tear out their scales to make a nest ; but they are ready, 

 even eager, to lacerate themselves to provide a fit place for 

 the eggs. It is a very wonderful example of the maternal 



