SALMON FISHING WITH THE FLY. 179 
There are certain well-known and established facts con- 
nected with salmon fishing that need no mention on my part, 
and I will endeavour to confine myself, as far as I can, to the 
relation of that which I know of my own knowledge. During 
an experience of over thirty years, in England, Scotland, Ire- 
land, and Norway, I have had most favourable opportunities 
of studying the habits of the salmon and the art of fishing for 
him, and, if any information I am able to give should prove 
useful to my brother fishermen, I shall be amply repaid for my 
trouble. ; 
All the knowledge we. possess of the habits of the salmon 
has been acquired during that period of his life which he passes 
in fresh water. We know nothing of his habits during his so- 
journ in the sea, except that at certain seasons of the year he 
feels his way along the coast until instinct teaches him he has 
found the estuary of the river he has been bred in, and he then 
makes his way up it. From this time until, in the natural course 
of events, he returns to the sea, we have many opportunities 
of studying his habits, and we get to know certain facts, from 
which we draw our own conclusions. We start theories with- 
out end, some of which, after a short argument, will be found 
utterly baseless; but others seem more plausible, and have a 
certain amount of evidence to support them, such as may make 
it reasonable to assume that we have arrived at something like 
a near approximation to the truth. 
_ We know a salmon enters fresh water at certain seasons of 
the year for the purpose of propagating his species, that sooner 
or later he makes his way to the locality where instinct points 
out to him he is to deposit his spawn, and that on his journey 
upwards he will occasionally take whatever bait is offered him 
by the angler. When the time comes he deposits his spawn, 
after which he gradually makes his way down the river and 
re-enters the sea, The seais his native element, and I think 
“it must be taken for granted that he feeds voraciously during 
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