118 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. PART I. 



shall take my leave of him : and now come to some obser- 

 vations of the Salmon, and how to catch him. 



CHAP. VII. 



Observation* on the SALMON; with Direction* how to fish for him. 



Piscator. THE Salmon is accounted the king of fresh- 

 water fish; and is ever bred in rivers relating to the sea, 

 yet so high, or far from it, as admits of no tincture of salt, 

 or brackishness. He is said to breed or cast his spawn, 

 in most rivers, in the month of August: 1 some say, that 

 then they dig a hole or grave in a safe place in the gravel, 

 and there place their eggs or spawn, after the melter has 

 done his natural office, and then hide it most cunningly, 

 and cover it over with gravel and stones ; and then leave 

 it to their Creator's protection, who, by a gentle heat 

 which infuses into that cold element, makes it brood and 

 beget life in the spawn, and to become Samlets early in 

 the spring next following. 



The Salmons having spent their appointed time, and 

 done this natural duty in the fresh waters, they then 

 haste to the sea before winter, both the melter and 

 spawner: but if they be stopt 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 kip- 



touch it with your foot it flies from you : and when you are in, the least incli- 

 nation of the body oversets it. It is very diverting to see how upright a man 

 is forced to tit in these vessels and to mark with what state and solemnity he 

 draws op the atone which serves for an anchor, when he would remove, and 

 leu it down tgaiu ; however, it is a sort of navigation that I would wish our 

 pisratory disciple never to attempt. 



(1) Their usual time of spawning is about the latter end of August or the 

 beginning of September, but it is said that those in the Severn spawn in May. 



