xxii INTRODUCTORY 
peculiar joy of standing waist deep in a clear High- 
land river, the water lapping one’s bare elbows as 
one casts, the nearness of the glitter on the surface, 
the sense of being part of this moving, life-giving 
force! These are joys, apart altogether from the 
success of the sport, which more than compensate 
for the strokes of ill fortune, the dire disasters when 
sun, moon, and stars seem to fall from their places, 
as well as for the petty exasperations which on 
certain days seem constantly to dog one’s steps. 
But the angler carries away with him when he 
leaves the river the results of his observations, and 
when he smokes his evening pipe those salmon 
problems rise again in his mind, and he goes to the 
river on the morrow with fresh suggestions and 
explanations, fresh points to follow out by renewed 
observation. Sir Joshua said that to get his fine 
results he mixed his paints with brains. So in sport, 
as in other things where perfected appliances mean 
a good deal, it is after all ‘“‘the man behind the 
machine that counts.” Yet what along time it has 
taken us to gain anything like a satisfactory know- 
ledge of the salmon. 
It is only seventy years since Shaw,* at Drum- 
lanrig, proved that the parr is the young of the 
salmon and not a small adult member of the salmon 
family. All the early writers, up to Parnell (1838), 
describe the parr under the name of salmo salmulus, 
and the author named states at considerable length 
* Shaw, “An Account of Experimental Observations on the 
Development and Growth of Salmon Fry.” Trans. Roy. Soc., Edin., 
vol. xiv. p. 547, 1840. 
