12 INTRODUCTION. 



A keen fisherman told me a curious incident which happened 

 to himself. He was using a fly with a double hook, which a 

 salmon of 9 Ibs. took. The fish made a short quick rush, and 

 then came straight in like a log of wood, and was pulled out 

 on the gravel just alive and no more. The hook had one barb in 

 the upper jaw and the other barb in the lower, the mouth being 

 closed so tightly that the fish was simply drowned. Within the 

 mouth and gills was a whole fresh trout 4 in. long, half another, 

 very much decomposed, and several worms. All this food 

 had been stopped in the act of being cast out, a circumstance, I 

 believe, that usually, if not always, takes place on a fish being 

 hooked, suddenly seized, and possibly when very much startled. 



The above circumstances would satisfy most people that food 

 is taken by salmon when in fresh water. Why they take 

 the artificial fly, except mistaking it for a shrimp, I cannot say. 

 The minnow is a good representative of a trout or a fly. The 

 colley,^ which is very much used in Ireland by poachers as well 

 as legitimate fishermen, is very deadly. 



I may here refer to a river I visited in Yesso, the northern 

 island of the Japanese group, where the lower three miles was 

 fished to a scale unknown in England. The time for netting 

 opened the third week in August and closed the second week in 

 October, during which time about seven weeks the average 

 season's catch of salmon was 6000 tons. No outside or coast 

 fishing existed. The fish were left free, and had time to repro- 

 duce their species without further persecution. 



* " Colley," local name for a loach. 



