EVERYONE knows of the salmon’s astonishing migrations and remarkable ability to live in both salt and fresh water.

Shelton, one-time head of the Freshwater Fisheries Laboratory at Pitlochry and now director of the Atlantic Salmon Trust, delivers both a scientifically-based account of the salmon’s extraordinary life and a personal memoir.

He salutes heroes such as Frank Buckland and Spencer Walpole, inspectors of Britain’s salmon fisheries at the height of the Industrial Revolution.

He believes the reckless pollution would have been far worse but for these men, to whose endeavours he traces the roots of the superior post-industrial recovery of former salmon rivers such as the Tyne and the Wear compared with counterparts abroad.

An attractive typeface and a wellchosen selection of antique illustrations make this book a pleasure to pick up and handle.