MAY 105 



land of happy memory. Immediately under this fall, and 

 for some hundreds of yards below it, salmon collect in 

 great numbers ; you may see them lying on the bottom 

 like motionless shadows, or roving restlessly about, dis- 

 contented with their quarters, and pining to get to their 

 beloved birthplace above the barrier. Why they should 

 so desire is one of the inscrutable traits of salmon nature. 

 True, there are good spawning-grounds up there, but this 

 is but the month of May, and there is no business to be 

 done on the shallow ' redds ' before the end of October at 

 earliest. The fact is, salmon are like human beings and 

 every other creature ; they have an unconquerable long- 

 ing to get ' home,' and home is the place one remembers in 

 childhood. It might be supposed that to a cold-blooded 

 animal the sparkling blue sea were preferable to narrow, 

 tepid pools during the summer heats ; anyhow, that more 

 comfortable lodgings might be found in the ample lower 

 reaches of the main river. Not so. The salmon resorts to 

 the sea because there alone can he find provender to sate 

 his prodigious appetite; so long as that appetite is in 

 good repair he suffers the inconvenience of salt water, and 

 is content to run hazard of porpoises, seals, and other 

 formidable oppressors; but no sooner has he eaten his 

 fill of herrings and other fine fare, and his skin is 

 stretched to its utmost limit, his muscles crammed 

 with enough nutriment to carry him through a long 

 physiological fast, than his thoughts turn homewards, the 

 salt becomes intolerable to him, and he craves the pure 

 fresh volume of [his native river. That seems to be his 

 motive in leaving the sea ; but why he should . run 

 through the great river pools and hurry impetuously into 

 the small head-waters, often ludicrously disproportionate 



