312 HOW SALMON BOUND FROM THE WATER. 



powers are limited or augmented according to the 

 depth of water they spring from: in shallow 

 water, they have little power of ascension; in 

 deep, they have the most considerable. They 

 rise rapidly from the very bottom to the surface 

 of the water by means of rowing and sculling, as 

 it were, with their fins and tail ; and this power- 

 ful impetus bears them upwards in the air, on the 

 same principle that a few tugs of the oar make a 

 boat shoot onwards after one has ceased to row." 



The spawning process is thus accurately de- 

 scribed by Mr. Scrope : " Salmon are led by 

 instinct to select such places for depositing their 

 spawn as are the least likely to be affected by the 

 floods. These are the broad parts of the river, 

 where the water runs swift and shallow, and has 

 a free passage over an even bed. - Here they 

 either select an old spawning place, a sort of 

 trough left in the channel, or form a fresh one. 

 The spawning bed is made by the female. Some 

 have fancied that the elongation of the lower jaw 

 in the male, which is somewhat in the form of a 

 crook, is designed by nature to enable him to 

 excavate the spawning trough. Certainly it is 

 difficult to divine what may be the true use of 

 this very ugly excrescence ; but observation has 

 proved that this idea is a fallacy, and that the 

 male never assists in making the spawning-place ; 

 and, indeed, if he did so, he would not possibly 



