400 SALMON AND TROUT, 
preserved in salt used with great success, and indeed it is 
difficult to see why it is thought necessary to boil them. The 
boiling process doubtless gives them a very attractive appear- 
ance, but a salmon in a predatory humour is no respecter of 
colour. It is the smell that is the attraction ; otherwise how 
could fish feed on worms, and other natural food, in thick 
water in a heavy flood, when it is impossible for them to see an 
inch before them? That fish possess considerable powers of 
smell is well known, and is proved if only by the fact that 
salmon roe will attract trout to it from an almost incredible 
distance down stream, in flooded water. I have never heard 
of an instance of a salmon being caught by an artificial prawn 
when fished like the real bait. 
‘There are many different sorts of tackle used for fishing 
with the prawn. I have. tried most of them, and as I think 
that nothing can beat one that was shown to me by Mr. 
Barter, a well-known and most successful salmon fisher in the 
South of Ireland, I append a drawing of it This gentleman 
has made prawn, as well as every other mode of bait fishing, 
his especial study, and I know no better authority on such 
matters. 
‘Fig. 1 represents the tackle before the prawn is put on. 
The point of the needle is to be inserted in the tail and 
brought out at the middle of the breast, the point protruding 
about one-eighth of an inch; the small loop underneath the 
shank of the lowermost double hooks is then drawn over the 
point and pulled up as far as it will go, and the tail made 
fast to the trace by binding it with one or two turns of red 
cotton thread. 
‘If it is thought necessary, in order to prevent the action of 
the stream from tearing off the scales, the binding can be con- 
tinued four or five turns towards the head and back again to 
the tail and there fastened off. If this is carefully and artisti- 
cally done, a prawn should last a long time even in a rapid 
stream. When preserved any length of time in glycerine it 
will generally require binding, but if it has been kept in salt 
