THE STORY OF THE SALMON 



HP* HE whole of this story is not yet told, and what there 

 X is of it equally good observers tell in somewhat differ- 

 ent ways. But these are not sufficient reasons for severely 

 leaving it out of our seasonal chronicle. The broad facts 

 are certain, though uncertainties still abound. They are 

 largely due, we think, to the fact that this much-esteemed, 

 but intellectually defective fish has in no small degree an 

 individuality of behaviour and a plasticity of constitution. 

 Its freshwater environment, moreover, is very diverse, 

 for every river has a character of its own. What is to be 

 avoided is forcing a formula on the salmon. 



We might include the story of the salmon with appro- 

 priateness at almost any season, but we have taken it as 

 an autumnal study for two reasons, because our best views 

 of the salmon surmounting a fall (is not this what their 

 very name points to ?) have been got in Autumn, and because 

 salmon spawn in British rivers in late Autumn or Winter. 

 One of the leading authorities * states the law for Scotland, 

 that " the height of the spawning season in the earliest 

 river, viz. 7th November, is one month earlier than the 

 height of the spawning season in the latest river, viz. 

 8th December." 



The salmon's eggs are laid in the gravelly bed of the 

 stream in shallow water. The female makes a furrow for 

 them with her tail, and covers it roughly after her attendant 

 mate has shed upon them the fertilising milt. One female 



1 W. L. Calderwood, The Life of the Salmon (1907). 

 299 



