26 A SWIFT TRAVELLER. 



It has been ascertained that smolts returning from the 

 sea within six or eight weeks of their first migration will 

 weigh from three to five pounds. They are then known 

 as grilse. Some reascend the rivers when weighing only 

 a pound and a half or two pounds ; and these, in many 

 places, are known as salmon peaL 



Thenceforth the salmon passes its life in annual migra- 

 tions to the sea, returning to the rivers to spawn, or for 

 other reasons, in the autumn, and frequently remaining 

 during most of the winter. It revisits, if it can, the 

 stream in which it has spent the earlier part of its exist- 

 ence ', and the fish belonging to any particular river 

 always exhibit some characteristic difference from those 

 belonging to other rivers. It is surprising to what a dis- 

 tance from the sea they will force their way ; ascending 

 the Rhine to the Falls of SchafFhausen, and the Elbe to 

 Bohemia. Their rate of speed is extraordinary ; they 

 can travel fifteen hundred feet in a minute, or four hun- 

 dred miles in a day ; but this is only in what an oarsman 

 would call occasional " spurts." Still, with all the diffi- 

 culties in their way, they will make twenty to twenty- 

 five miles in as many hours. As we have already stated, 

 the greatest perpendicular leaps they seem able to achieve 

 do not exceed twelve or fourteen feet. If they attempt 

 more, they fall back exhausted, and perish on the neigh- 

 bouring rocks. But they can carry themselves up rushing 

 and broken cataracts of a much more considerable eleva- 

 tion by a series of characteristic bounds or boomerang 

 springs. 



As spawning-time approaches, they undergo consider- 

 able changes of colour, and both male and female assume 

 a general duskiness. In. this state they are called *' foul 



