132 SALMON AND TROUT. 



Garry, the course of which from Faskally upwards through the 

 pass of KiUicrankie is * mildly rapid and its bed strewn over 

 with rocks and boulders of every dimension. . . . One not fully 

 versed in all the outs and ins of salmon fishing, proficient 

 as he might be in the use of the rod, becomes so deceived as 

 to construe the interspersed breaks and shallows, the flush of 

 water passing through the tired eddies, the jutting shelves 

 which gleam underneath — the whole build, in fact, of the 

 channel — into a series of admirable resting places for the 

 fish. . . . But the truth simply is that in resting humour no 

 fish are ever there. Such are not the spots where the instinct 

 of salmon induces them to halt at and show appetite. Proceed 

 farther up. Climb from its torrent termination to the head of 

 the pass, to the point in the course of the Garry where the 

 distribution of the rock becomes alternated also with stretches 

 of alluvial deposit — in fact, with spawning ground — and in the 

 pools favoured by such a combination you will find that not 

 only are salmon to be met with, but that they are to be met 

 with in a position which prompts and enables them to come 

 readily towards the offered lure of the angler.' 



As observed, however, the caprices of salmon with regard 

 to the particular parts they favour or reject, and even as to the 

 position occupied by each individual fish, where there are 

 several in the same pool, are most curious. Possibly the latter 

 arrangement may be dependent upon some ' first come, first 

 served ' principle — a sort of piscine recognition of the rule of 

 beati possessores. Where salmon are very numerous indeed, 

 as for example in the Galway River, I have seen whole shoals 

 which for some reason appear intent on * keeping themselves 

 to themselves,' and from whose ranks straggling was evidently 

 interdicted. These different shoals were almost always of dif- 

 ferent sizes. An interesting example of this was noticed by my 

 friend. Sir Charles Mordaunt, in the case of a pool in a well- 

 known Scotch river. In a letter to me he says : ' Once, when 

 the water was too low for fishing, a friend and I had the oppor- 

 tunity of very closely observing the salmon as they lay in "ranks" 



