NINTH DAY.] SAL MO HUCHO. 227 



minnows or bleaks jump out of the water. What 

 fish is it ? a trout ? It appeared to me too long and 

 too slender for a trout, and had more the character of 

 a pike ; yet it followed, and did not, like a pike, make 

 a single dart. 



HAL. I see him : it is neither a pike nor a trout, 

 but a fish which I have been some time hoping and 

 expecting to see here, below the fall a salmo Jmcho, 

 or Jiuchen. I am delighted that you have an 

 opportunity of seeing this curious fish and of 

 observing his habits. I hope we shall catch him. 



POIET. Catch him ! we have no tackle strong 

 enough. 



HAL. I am surprised to hear a salmon fisher talk 

 so : yet he is too large to take a fly, and must be 

 trolled for. We must spin a bleak for him, or small 

 fish, as we do for the trout of the Thames or the 

 salmon of the Tay. Ornither, you understand the 

 arrangement of this kind of tackle look out in my 

 book the strongest set of spinning hooks you can find, 

 and supply them with a bleak ; and whilst I am 

 changing the reel, I will give you all the information 

 (which, I am sorry to say, is not much) that I have 

 been able to collect respecting this fish from my own 

 observation or the experience of others. The hucho 

 is the most predatory fish of the salmo genus, and is 

 made like an ill-fed trout, but longer and thicker. 



Q2 



