was up all these posts and hurdles were covered with
water, and as the fish swam up to meet the fresh stream, a great many
would sometimes be over the ground inclosed by the weir, searching about
for food washed down by the stream, or for the little shrimps and other
water creatures that hung about the hurdles, which were a favourite
place too with mussels, which cling to such wood-work by thousands. Now
though they are easily frightened it does not seem as if fish have much
brain, for sometimes they stopped swimming about inside these hurdles
till the tide had run down as low as the tops of the posts, and then,
feeling it was time for them to be off with the tide, they'd start to
swim off, but only to find themselves shut in.

Sometimes it would be a shoal of grey mullet, sometimes a salmon or two
that had tried to get up the stream, and could not get by the pebble
bar; and there they would be swimming about, not feeling their danger
till it was too late.

First of all they would try to get through the hurdles, and there they
would keep on trying till some wise one amongst them thought that by
swimming round the ends at A or B they would reach the open sea.

Sometimes they would do this and escape. They all follow one another
like sheep in a flock; but generally they do not try to get round the
ends till it is too late, for while there is still plenty of water at C
there is very little at B and none at all at A, and the consequence is
that the fish are left splashing when the tide goes out, in a few little
shallow pools, where there is nothing to do but scoop them out with a
bit of a net.

The tide was getting well down, and the hurdles were nearly all bare,
but there was too much water for us to see whether there were any fish
left, and so we stood on first one big boulder, and then upon another,
as they were left dry, every now and then making a bold leap on to a
rock, to stand there surrounded by water, and now and then obliged to
jump back to avoid a wetting.

But at last the hurdles and stones at the sea end of the weir were
completely left by the tide, so that we could walk down, and then, as
the water shallowed more and more in the triangular inclosure, we looked
out eagerly for fish.

"There they are--lots of 'em!" cried Bob excitedly, for he was too much
interested to be disagreeable and say unpleasant things.

"Oh, those are only little ones," cried Bigley, as the little silvery
fry kept flashing ou