114 OBSERVATIONS ON A SALMON RIVER 



company with one of them, and I always 

 chose the easy side of the tree, if there was 

 one, for myself; but I was hopelessly left 

 behind, and invariably found my partner 

 well through his share of the work while I 

 was still only half-way through mine. 

 They were, it is true, extravagant of the 

 timber, and used to make a huge gash which 

 would have horrified a Scotch or English 

 forester. 



The picture would be incomplete without 

 some account of the natural history of the 

 river. In addition to salmon, it held any 

 quantity of sea-trout. These ran later than 

 the salmon, but by the month of July the 

 river was full of them. They frequented as 

 a rule the thinner water, but they were gen- 

 erally to be found in the salmon pools also. 

 Here they were a great nuisance. They 

 stuck at nothing in the way of a fly. They 

 had tremendous teeth, and after playing one 

 or two of them your fly was ruined. More- 

 over, the larger fish played very strong, and 

 in spite of attempts to give them short shrift, 



