RESULTS OF SALMON MARKING 81 
by instinct turns quickly in the direction in which 
it has last come—where it was not frightened; a 
frightened ascending fish goes down, and a frightened 
descending kelt goes up. In a small stream, how- 
ever, escape by ascent is scarcely possible, and a 
forced departure from the course prompted as natural 
must only heighten and complete the alarm and 
demoralisation of the creature. In the small streams 
of the West Highlands the kelts which quickly and 
naturally descend recover condition in the brackish 
water at the mouths of the streams. Ifdriven from 
such a haven of refuge by fear or any other com- 
pelling cause, recovery may be sought in fresh water 
elsewhere. 
It does not always follow that fish caught in the 
sea at a considerable distance from their breeding 
river will not return thither. Yet in the search for 
food and the following of herring shoals it is not 
surprising that some fish may lose their bearings. 
In the drift-net fishing for salmon which is conducted 
off the coast of Ireland, nets appear to be shot at 
times as far as eighteen miles from shore, and if fish 
wander, say double or treble this distance, as salmon 
marking shows us they sometimes do, they may 
naturally resort to other rivers than were formerly 
visited ; or, as has been suggested, some fish may 
systematically wander to rivers commonly frequented 
by larger fish, rather than return, after growth in 
the sea, to the rivers of their youth. In the salmon 
marking results we do not, however, find much evi- 
dence of this. The numbers caught in bag-nets on 
the open coast at a considerable distance from the 
F 
