of t)ie salmon leads to llie most singular efforts to
escape, which must be met and foiled by equal
promptitude on the pnrt of the angler. However
that faculty is acquired, the salmon seems, when
hooked, at once to conceive the nature of its mis-
fortune, and to follow the mode of disentangling
itself most like to be successful. For this it makes
the most extraordinary effurls, sometimes shooting
off with fury that is apparently irresistible among'
such boiling currents and sharp rocks as seem most
Lke to i^ut the line — sometimes lying at the bottom
of the pool with the appearance of sullen indiffer-
ence, as if nothing could rouse him. In the first
case, it is the business of the angler to bold the
fish in play, amid his wildest frolics using him as
a prudent father does an extrayagant son, neither
allowing him so much line as may enable the youth
to shake himself clear of the paternal restraint
which hangs so loose on him, or curbing so tight
as to induce him to break through it by a sud-
den effort of sturdy opposition. Jn the salmon's
wildest vagaries he must be made to feel that
there is a secret restraint on his motions, which
yet must never amount to such a dead pull upon
liim as may he encountered and overcome by an
attempt to breali the line by main force. His
sullen fits are no less to be dreaded. When the
fish lies at the bottom of a pool, motionless and sulky
as if he were a stone, the anglei' must summon
together liis utmost vigilance, for he is certainly
collecting his sli'ength for some decisive exertion.
