THE SALMON 191 



of salmon have been the subject of gross exaggeration, owing 



to one writer blindly repeating the statements of another. 



Thus it is certain that Professor Seeley, usually a conscientious 



witness, was not speaking from his own observation when 



he described the limit of their perpendicular spring as " about 



twelve or fourteen feet." I have watched hundreds — thousands 



— of salmon and grilse leaping at falls, and I agree with 



Dr. Day that " a clear jump of six feet " is the maximum 



of a salmon's performance. A sheer fall of seven feet is 



an effectual bar to the ascent of salmon. 



The question whether salmon feed in fresh water is 



the nucleus of a controversy which there seems no prospect 



^ „ , of bringing to an early conclusion. On the one 

 Do Salmon . .° , , ,. ^ . "^ 



feed in hand IS the belief of many anglers that they do 

 so, supported by the fact that salmon take not 

 only artificial flies, cunningly but arbitrarily fashioned to 

 meet their hypothetical taste, but worms, prawns, and 

 minnows. On the other hand there is the all but universal 

 failure to discover food in the stomach, or traces of food 

 in the bowel, of salmon taken in fresh water. Those rare 

 instances in which the remains of food have been so found, 

 have occurred only in the examination of kelts — that is, 

 salmon returning to the sea after spawning. Yet if the 

 voracity with which the hungry aspect of kelt salmon has 

 caused them to be credited were well founded, such remains 

 of food ought to be present in almost every kelt examined. 

 The well-recognised phenomenon of the absence of all trace 

 of food in the stomach and intestines of salmon taken in 

 fresh water has led persons who decline to believe in a 

 physiological fast to account for it by a purely hypothetical 

 power inherent in the salmon of ejecting the contents of 

 both stomach and intestines immediately upon being hooked 

 or netted. Needless to say that such an explanation, in 

 the complete absence of any evidence to support it, is worth 

 no more consideration than ought to be shown to any a priori 



