558 
THE OCEAN WORLD. 
on the wing, as it were, in their leap. But the exploit, attributed to 
Lord Lovat by Dr. Franklin, is perhaps the nearest approach to the 
fabulous which we have met with. 
Having remarked that great numbers of salmon failed in their 
efforts to surmount the Falls of Kilmorack, and that they generally 
fell on the bank at the foot of the fall, Lord Lovat conceived the idea 
of placing a furnace and a frying-pan on a point of rock overhanging 
the river. After their unsuccessful effort some of the unhappy salmon 
would fall accidentally into the frying-pan. The noble lord could 
thus boast that the resources of his country were so abundant that, on 
placing a furnace and frying-pan on the banks of their rivers, the 
salmon would leap into it of their own accord, without troubling the 
sportsman to catch them. It is more probable, however, that Lord 
Lovat knew that the time to enjoy salmon in perfection is to cook it 
when fresh from the water, and before the richer parts of the fish 
have ceased to curd. 
We have seen how rapidly the young salmon increase in size in 
the sea. We can only conjecture what is the nature of their food at 
this stage of their existence: we are better informed as to their 
manner of living in fresh water. During their first stage they live 
chiefly on insects, and the spawn of small fishes ; from the time when 
they attain a certain size — that is, from the grilse to the adult state — 
they devour a multitude of these small fishes themselves. 
The British rivers in which the salmon abound are the Severn, the 
Wye, the Tweed, the Tay, the Don, and the Dee, with many of their 
tributaries, and in Ireland, the Shannon. Besides these, many of the 
watercourses of lesser note adjoining the coast have been renowned 
for their salmon fisheries. Some of the Scottish rivers, especially, are 
famous for the size and quality as well as numbers of salmon. In 
days not very distant from ours, farm servants made it a condition of 
their hiring that salmon should not be served to them more than 
three days in the week. These times are changed. In the districts 
in which this condition was the most stringently insisted on, the 
riverains derive a princely revenue from this source alone. The Tay 
fisheries yield a revenue of seventeen thousand pounds per annum. 
The Spey, for its length the richest in Scotland, produces twelve 
thousand pounds per annum. The river is only a hundred and 
