KINSHIP WITH THE ARTS 23 



may be not a bad image of some other 

 living thing. Whatever be the hues of 

 the feathers of which it is composed, re- 

 garded by the human eye while held 

 against rushing water, or dragged through 

 calm, it is not at all unlike a minnow or 

 some other fish of the same size. As 

 these small fish are various in their hues, 

 perhaps the explanation lies in this general 

 similitude. That conjecture is not in- 

 compatible with the belief that salmon 

 feed only when in the sea. There is 

 reason for suspecting that when a fish of 

 the salmon kind, or a pike, takes a real 

 minnow impaled on a flight of hooks, or a 

 manufactured thing resembling a minnow, 

 the fish is moved less by a desire to eat 

 than by a desire to kill. That is only my 

 own opinion ; but it has what seems to be 

 remarkable evidence in its favour. Many 

 an angler must have noticed that a salmon 

 or a trout, like a pike, will leave a whole 

 shoal of minnows undisturbed and rush at 

 an impaled minnow or at a phantom. 

 Why is this ? My theory is that the 



