CHAP. vii. THE FOURTH DAY. 101 



has hooked him, than any other fish. Though there^ be many ^ 

 of these fishes in the delicate river Dove ancTTrerft, a'rid some ' 

 other small rivers, as that which runs by Salisbury, yet he is 

 tTUT~so_^eneraTafish as the trout, nor to me so good to eat 

 or_to__angle for. And so I shall take my leave of him ; and 

 now come to some observations of the salmon, and how to 

 catch him. 



CHAPTER VII. 



OBSERVATIONS OF THE SALMON ; DIRECTIONS HOW TO 

 FISH FOR HIM. 



PiSC. The salmon is accounted the king of fresh-water fish ; 

 and is ever bred in rivers relating to the sea, yet so high or far 

 from it as admits of no tincture of salt or brackishness. He is 

 said to breed, or cast his spawn, in most rivers, in the month of 

 August : some say that then they dig a hole or grave in a safe 

 place in the gravel, and there place their eggs or spawn, after 

 the melter has done his natural office, and then hide it most 

 cunningly, and cover it over with gravel and stones, and then leave 

 it to that Creator's protection, who, by a gentle heat which He 

 infuses into that cold element, makes it brood and beget life in the 

 spawn, and to become samlets early in the spring next following. 



The salmons haying spent their appointed time, and done 

 this natural duty in the fresh waters, they then haste to the 

 sea before winter, both the melter and spawner ; but if they 

 be stopped by flood-gates or weirs or lost in the fresh waters, 

 then those so left behind by degrees grow sick, and lean, and 

 unseasonable, and kipper; that is to say, have bony gristles 

 grow out of their lower chaps, not unlike a hawk's beak, which 

 hinders their feeding ; and in time such fish, so left behind, 

 pine away and die. It is observed that he may live thus one 

 year from the sea ; but he then grows insipid and tasteless, and 

 loses both his blood and strength, and pines and dies the 

 second year. And it is noted that those little salmons called 

 skeggers, which abound in many rivers relating to the sea, are 



