330 LABRADOR 
I have lain on a high perpendicular rock, watching the gill- 
net stretched across the pool of clear, transparent water. 
I have seen the approach of the victim and his friends on 
the journey, the courage with which he charged the net. 
If only he would give way, he might yet go free. But he 
knows no yielding, and is not satisfied till the tough twine 
has passed over his head, caught behind his gills, and then 
it is too late to save himself. 
But we will follow the more successful fish that reach the 
home of a former year. Once in their pool, the mother fish 
finds a suitable sandy or fine gravelly spot in shallow water, 
where the ground Is soft and deep, and the current not too 
boisterous. Often enough it is the nest of a sea-trout before 
her, but of that she takes little account. Throwing herself 
on her side, she scoops out a “‘redd,” or nest, by flapping her 
tail, and in this she deposits a number of eggs. She then 
returns into deeper water, coming to and fro to her nest to 
lay more eggs for several days, till she has laid as many as 
five hundred for every pound she weighs. Each time, 
her male partner accompanies her, depositing the milt 
required to fertilize the eggs. Since they entered the river, 
they have avoided one source of danger by taking no food, 
and they subsist on the fat accumulated on the rich pastures 
outside the river. Indeed, the beautiful pink of their flesh 
depends on the crustaceans they have there devoured. 
the falls, he noticed first one and then another, that failed to clear 
the fall, totally disappear. A careful search revealed the fish head 
down and only their tails out of deep little pot-holes. He caught 
the fish for food, but was surprised to find the hole full at the bottom 
of bones of salmon that had no doubt perished miserably in the same 
way. It shows that salmon at times come head first down into the 
water when diving, like an expert human being. 
