164 ANGLING REMINISCENCES. 



the day of his capture when it might. Were not 

 this a lank kipper, of woe-begone aspect, beshrew 

 me an thou would'st have parted with him so readily J 



Otter. I grant you, Bill, you have reason for your 

 conjecture. There is strange magic, I allow, in the 

 eye of a clean-run salmon, which one hath just un- 

 coffined from the pool where he designed wintering. 

 I could no more resist it than Adam could the 

 apples of our grand-progenitrix. Yet with respect 

 to ripe, pregnant, and unwholesome fish, I aver that 

 the meddling therewith is a disgrace to our craft, 

 who ought, above all others, to be the natural pro- 

 tectors of the spawner, and favour, to their utmost 

 ability, the increase of salmon. 



May. Neat professions these, were they alway 

 acted up to. But how comes it, Tom, that your 

 mighty regard for the close-season allows you to 

 break in upon it as you do at present? See you 

 nothing injurious to the breeding of these noble fish 

 in our angling for trout among their places of resort, 

 and over the very channels where they are accus- 

 tomed to shed their ova ? 



Otter. Much otherwise. There is no species of 

 enemy so hostile to the salmon while spawning as 

 the common yellow trout, a single individual of which 

 will consume, in the course of a day, nearly its 

 own bulk in roe. You may perceive, by the readi- 

 ness with which they assail our baits, how deadly 

 they are to the unhatched progeny ; and truly 

 we can do no greater service to the holders of sal- 



