Note 11 — Chapter II · OCTOPODS I HAVE KNOWN.

The story of apprentices stipulating with their masters that they should not be required to eat salmon on more than a specified number of days in a week—a familiar illustration of satiety producing not only indifference but disgust—is probably, like many other illustrations, over-drawn, and not wholly correct in its representation. For if, as has been suggested, the salmon the youths objected to were often kelts, salted or fresh, their protest is hardly to be wondered at. No trace of such a stipulation has, however, been found in any old indentures.