l62 THE COMMON SALMON. 



these peregrinations it is that salmon are caught in 

 the great numbers that supply our markets and 

 tables. Intent only on the object of their journey, 

 they spring up cataracts and over other obstacles of 

 a very great height. This extraordinary power 

 seems to be owing to a sudden jerk that the fish 

 gives to its body from a bent into a straight position, 

 When they are unexpectedly obstructed in their 

 progress, it is said they swim a few paces back, 

 survey the object for some minutes motionless, re- 

 treat, and return again to the charge ; then, collect- 

 ing all their force, with one astonishing spring over- 

 leap every obstacle. Where the water is low, or 

 sand-banks intervene, they throw themselves on one 

 side, and in that position soon work themselves over 

 into the deep water beyond. On the river Liffey 

 in Ireland there is a cataract about nineteen feet 

 high : here, in the salmon season, many of the in- 

 habitants amuse themselves in observing the fish 

 leap up the torrent. They frequently fall back 

 many times before they surmount it, and baskets 

 made of twigs are placed near the edge of the 

 stream to catch them in their fall. — At the falls of 

 Kilmorack in Scotland, where the salmon are very 

 numerous, it is a common practice w T ith the country 

 people to lay branches of trees on the edges of the 

 rocks, and by this means they often take such of the 

 fish as miss their leap, which the foaming of the 

 torrent not unfrequently causes them to do. And 

 the late Lord Lovat, who often visited these falls, 

 taking the hint from this circumstance, formed a 

 determination to try a whimsical experiment on 



