DO SALMON FEED IN FRESH WATER i 103 



fresh water, as they greedily take real and artificial 

 spinning baits of all kinds, besides prawns and 

 worms, to say nothing of flies natural and artificial. 

 It cannot be supposed that they do so to gratify the 

 angler's love of sport, or for their own amusement, 

 or that they can find pleasure in disgorging what 

 they have swallowed. They often greedily seize 

 what they suppose is natural food, though it be 

 attached to the coarsest tackle, and more than likely 

 to scare every salmon from the pool. We know this 

 to be a fact from every-day observation. Surely, 

 then, they feed in fresh water on such natural food 

 as they find, and I cannot make out why people 

 think otherwise. Thousands of salmon have been 

 caught in the sea which must have only a very 

 short time previously swallowed food. What then 

 becomes of the food? It could not have been 

 digested at a moment's notice, and yet food has 

 rarely been found in the stomach of these fish. It 

 is absurd to imagine, as some people assert, that the 

 digestive powers of salmon are so singularly active. 



