APPENDIX. 



291 



Marvellous stories are told of the great heights which salmon 

 will leap in order to surmount the obstacles which nature or art 

 may have erected between the lower parts of a stream and the 

 upper waters which are suited to breeding purposes. Natural 

 historians used gravely to tell us that salmon, in -order to jump 

 high, were in the habit of placing their tails in their mouths, and 



CANADIAN SALMON LEAPS. 



then bending themselves like a bow, bound out of the water to a 

 considerable distance, from twelve to twenty feet. The late Mr. 

 Scrope, inhisbeautifulbook " Days and Nights of Salmon Fishing," 

 calculates that six feet in height is more than the average spring 

 of salmon, though he conceives that very large fish in deep water 

 could leap much higher. He says, " Large fish can leap much 

 higher than small ones ; but their powers are limited or augmented 



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