112 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 



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 bred by such sick salmons that might not go 

 to the sea ; and that though they abound, yet they never 

 thrive to any considerable bigness. 



But if the old salmon gets to the sea, then that gristle, 

 which shows him to be kipper, wears away, or is cast off, as 

 the eagle is said to cast his bill ; and he recovers his strength, 

 and comes next summer to the same river, if it be possible, 

 to enjoy the former pleasures that there possessed him ; for, 

 as one has wittily observed, he has, like some persons of 

 honour and riches, which have both their winter and summer 

 houses, the fresh rivers for summer, and the salt water for 

 winter, to spend his life in ; which is not, as Sir Francis 

 Bacon hath observed in his " History of Life and Death," 

 above ten years. And it is to be observed, that though the 

 salmon does grow big in the sea, yet he grows not fat but in 

 fresh rivers ; and it is observed, that the farther they get 

 from the sea, they be both the fatter and better."" 



* This paragraph, with the one that precedes it, teems with palpable igno- 

 rance. Salmon, having spawned, proceed to sea immediately they have reco- 

 vered from the exhaustion consequent on spawning. It is, therefore, in the 

 spring, before summer, and not as Walton says, " before winter," that they 

 generally migrate sea-ward. Their remaining for a year, under any circum- 

 stances, in fresh water, after they have become adult, never occurs. The gristle, 

 or crook-shaped excrescence, is only found in male salmon, generally about 

 spawning time, and some weeks afterwards, and disappears as the fish gets into 

 condition, to re-appear again the following breeding season. The use of this 

 excrescence is not accurately known. Skeggers are smolts, the one-year-old 

 produce of healthy, and not of " sick salmons." Salmon cannot be called sick, 

 except between the periods of spawning and going to sea. They are then 

 called " kelts," and not " kippers." A " kipper" now means a salmon cured by 

 salt, sugar, and drying. It is in the sea, and not in fresh water, that salmon 

 grow " big and fat." After the first year, they do not increase in size in fresh 

 water, but, on the contrary, diminish in bulk. When we say a " clear fresh- 

 run" salmon, we mean one in good condition, bright and fat, and caught just 



