244 SPORT AMONGST THE MOUNTAINS 



passes my comprehension. Still more astonishing is 

 it that these extraordinary objects must be varied in 

 size, colours, and sundry other particulars, according 

 to locality and time of year. 



But let not the reader, who is yet unlearned in 

 the craft, imagine that every salmon is such a fool as 

 to leap at the gaudy lure. From my little experi- 

 ence of the number of these princely fish which run 

 up certain rivers, and the small proportion of them 

 which fall victims to the rod, I would rather be 

 inclined to come to the conclusion that these un- 

 happy individuals must either be lunatics or morbid 

 misanthropical (misopiscical ?) specimens of the 

 genus, that a fish who takes the fly is either entirely 

 bereft of his senses, or has firmly made up his mind, 

 wearied with subaqueous trials, to hang himself — 

 upon a hook — and that his vigorous struggles after 

 he is hooked are to be accounted for by that instinct 

 of self-preservation which is the first law of nature, 

 and which often leads a would-be suicide, after he 

 has jumped into the water, to exert himself might 

 and main to get out of it again. 



Not the least charm of salmon-fishing is the 

 wild grandeur of the scenery in which the best of 

 it is found, heather-clad mountains, ravines, and 

 gorges, rapid, rushing streams, plashing waterfalls, 

 deep smooth pools, and huge rocks here and there 



