The fourth day - continued

The Salmon

Chapter VII

Piscator

The Salmon is accounted the King of freshwater fish; and is ever bred
in rivers relating to the sea, yet so high. or far from it, as admits of no
tincture of salt, or brackishness. He is said to breed or cast his spawn, in
most rivers, in the month of August: some say, that then they dig a hole
or grave in a safe place in the gravel, and there place their eggs or
spawn, after the melter has done his natural office, and then hide it
most cunningly, and cover it over with gravel and stones; and then
leave it to their Creator's protection, who, by a gentle heat which he
infuses into that cold element, makes it brood, and beget life in the
spawn, and to become Samlets early in the spring next following.

The Salmons having spent their appointed time, and done this natural
duty in the fresh waters, they then haste to the sea before winter, both
the melter and spawner; but if they be stops by flood-gates or weirs, or
lost in the fresh waters, then those so left behind by degrees grow sick
and lean, and unseasonable, and kipper, that is to say, have bony
gristles grow out of their lower chaps, not unlike a hawk's beak, which
hinders their feeding; and, in time, such fish so left behind pine away
and die. 'Tis observed, that he may live thus one year from the sea; but
he then grows insipid and tasteless, and loses both his blood and
strength, and pines and dies the second year. And 'tis noted, that those
little Salmons called Skeggers, which abound in many rivers relating to
the sea, are bred by such sick Salmons that might not go to the sea, and
that though they abound, yet they never thrive to any considerable
bigness.

But if the old Salmon gets to the sea, then that gristle which shews him
to be kipper, wears away, or is cast off, as the eagle is said to cast his
bill, and he recovers his strength, and comes next summer to the same
river, if it be possible, to enjoy the former pleasures that there possess
him; for, as one has wittily observed, he has, like some persons of
honour and riches which have both their winter and summer houses, the
fresh rivers for summer, and the salt water for winter, to spend his life
in; which is not, as Sir Francis Bacon hath observed in his History of
Life and Death, above ten years. And it is to be observed, that though
the Salmon does grow big in the sea, yet he grows not fat but in fresh
rivers; and it is observed, that the farther they get from the sea, they be
both the fatter and better.