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HARVARD UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

OF THE
MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

GIFT OF

10*1$

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SEP 1 1328

EPHEMERA,

WITH THEIR IMITATIONS OH HOOKS.

/—f*.

'

SALMONIA:

OR

DAYS OF FLY FISHING.

A SERIES OF CONVERSATIONS.

WITH SOME

ACCOUNT OF THE HABITS

OF
FISHES BELONGING TO THE GENUS

SAL MO.

BY AN ANGLER.

B^Lir 0 1>V IWlbi^^ JjCXWjL>

" Equidem credo quia sit divinitus illis

Ingenium.'

LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.

MDCCCXXVIII.

I -

um MCZ LIBRARY
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
CAMBRIDGE. MA USA

LONDON:

PRINTED BY C. ROWORTH, BELL YARD,
TEMPLE BAR.

TO

WILLIAM BABINGTON,

M.D. F.R.S.

THESE CONVERSATIONS ARE DEDICATED,

IN REMEMBRANCE

OF SOME DELIGHTFUL DAYS PASSED IN HIS

SOCIETY,

AND IN GRATITUDE

FOR AN UNINTERRUPTED FRIENDSHIP OF

A

QUARTER OF A CENTURY.

PREFACE.

These pages formed the occupation of the
Author during many months of severe and
dangerous illness, when he was wholly inca-
pable of attending to more useful studies,
or of following more serious pursuits. They
formed his amusement in many hours, which
otherwise would have been unoccupied and
tedious; and they are published in the hope
that they may possess an interest for those
persons who derive pleasure from the sim-
plest and most attainable kind of rural sports,
and who practise the art, or patronize the

VI PREFACE.

objects of contemplation, of the Philoso-
phical Angler.

The conversational manner and discursive
style were chosen as best suited to the state
of health of the Author, who was incapable
of considerable efforts and long-continued
attention; and he could not but have in
mind a model, which has fully proved the
utility and popularity of this method of treat-
ing the subject — The Complete Angler, by
Walton and Cotton.

The characters chosen to support these
Conversations, are — Halieus, who is sup-
posed to be an accomplished fly fisher ;
Ornither, who is to be regarded as a gen-
tleman generally fond of the sports of the
field, though not a finished master of the art

PREFACE. Vll

of angling; Poietes, who is to be considered
as an enthusiastic lover of nature, and par-
tially acquainted with the mysteries of fly
fishing; and, Physicus, who is described
as uninitiated as an angler, but as a person
fond of inquiries in natural history and philo-
sophy.

These characters are of course imaginary,
though the sentiments attributed to them
the Author may sometimes have gained
from recollections of real conversations with
friends, from whose society much of the
happiness of his early life has been derived ;
and in the portrait of the mind of Halieus,
given in the last dialogue, a likeness, he
thinks, will not fail to be recognised to that
of a most estimable Physician, ardently be-
loved by his friends, and esteemed and vene-
rated by the public.

Vlll PREFACE.

He has limited his description of fish to
the varieties of the Salmo most usual in the
fresh waters of Europe, and which may be
defined as a genus having eight fins, the
one above the tail fleshy, and without
spines.

It is to be hoped M. Cuvier's new work
on fishes will supply accurate information on
this genus, which is still very imperfectly
known.

London :
March 1, 1828.

EPHEMER/E,

WITH THEIR IMITATIONS OR HOOKS.

SALMONIA:

OR,

DAYS OF FLY FISHING.

FIRST DAY.

Halieus— Poietes— Physicus— Ornither.

INTRODUCTORY CONVERSATION— SYMPOSIAC.

Scene, London.

Phys. — Halieus, I dare say you know where
this excellent trout was caught : I never ate
a better fish of the kind.

Hal.— I ought to know, as it was this
morning in the waters of the Wandle, not
ten miles from the place where we sit, and it
is through my means that you see it at table.

B

2 SALMONIA.

Phys. — Of your own catching?

Hal. — Yes, with the artificial fly.

Phys. — I admire the fish, but I cannot
admire the art by which it was taken ; and I
wonder how a man of your active mind and
enthusiastic character can enjoy what ap-
pears to me a stupid and melancholy occu-
pation.

Hal. — I might as well wonder in my turn,
that a man of your discursive imagination
and disposition to contemplation should not
admire this occupation, and that you should
venture to call it either stupid or melancholy.

Phys. — I have at least the authority of a
great moralist, Johnson, for its folly.

Hal. — I will allow no man, however great
a philosopher, or moralist, to abuse an occu-
pation he has not tried; and as well as I re-
member, this same illustrious person praised
the book and the character of the great
Patriarch of Anglers, Isaac Walton.

Phys. — There is another celebrated man,
however, who has abused this your patriarch,
Lord Byron, and that in terms not very qua-
lified. He calls him, as well as I can recol-

VINDICATION OF FLY FISHING. S

lect, "A quaint old cruel coxcomb."* I
must say, a practice of this great fisherman,
where he recommends you to pass the hook
through the body of a frog with care, as
though you loved him, in order to keep him
alive longer, cannot but be considered as
cruel.

Hal. — I do not justify either the expres-
sion or the practice of Walton in this in-
stance ; but remember, / fish only with
inanimate baits, or imitations of them, and
I will not exhume or expose the ashes of the
dead, nor vindicate the memory of Walton,
at the expense of Byron, who, like John-
son, was no fisherman : but the moral and
religious habits of Walton, his simplicity of
manners, and his well-spent life, exonerate
him from the charge of cruelty ; and the
book of a coxcomb would not have been so
great a favourite with most persons of re-

* From Don Juan, Canto XII. Stanza CVI.
" And Angling too, that solitary vice,
Whatever Isaac Walton sings or says :
The quaint old cruel coxcomb in his gullet
Should have a hook and a small trout to pull it."

b2

4 SALMON I A.

fined taste. A noble lady, long distinguished
at court for pre-eminent beauty and grace,
and whose mind possesses undying charms,
has written some lines in my copy of Wal-
ton, which, if you will allow me, I will repeat
to you.

Albeit, gentle Angler, I

Delight not in thy trade,
Yet in thy pages there doth lie
So much of quaint simplicity,
So much of mind,
Of such good kind,
That none need be afraid,
Caught by thy cunning bait, this book,
To be ensnared on thy hook,

Gladly from thee, I'm lured to bear

With things that seemed most vile before,
For thou didst on poor subjects rear
Matter the wisest sage might hear.
And with a grace,
That doth efface
More laboured works, thy simple lore
Can teach us that thy skilful lines,
More than the scaly brood confines.

POEM IN PRAISE OF WALTON. O

Our hearts and senses too, we see,
Rise quickly at thy master hand,
And ready to be caught by thee
Are lured to virtue willingly.
Content and peace,
With health and ease,
Walk by thy side. At thy command
WTe bid adieu to worldly care,
And joy in gifts that all may share.

Gladly, with thee, I pace along,
And of sweet fancies dream ;
Waiting till some inspired song,
Within my memory cherished long,
Comes fairer forth,
With more of worth ;
Because that time upon its stream
Feathers and chaff will bear away,
But give to gems a brighter ray.

And though the charming and intellectual
author of this poem is not an angler herself,
yet I can quote the example of her lovely
daughters to vindicate fly fishing from the
charge of cruelty, and to prove that the most
delicate and refined minds can take pleasure
in this innocent amusement. One of these

6 SALMONIA.

young ladies, I am told, is a most accom-
plished and skilful salmon fisher. And if
you require a poetical authority against that
of Lord Byron, I mention the philosophical
and powerful poet of the lakes, and the
author of

" An Orphic tale indeed,
A tale divine, of high and passionate thoughts,
To their own music chaunted ;"*

who is a lover both of fly fishing afnd fly fish-
ermen. Gay's poem you know, and his pas-
sionate love for the amusement, which was
his principal occupation in the summer at
Amesbury; and the late excellent John
Tobin, author of the Honey Moon, was an
ardent angler.

Phys. — I am satisfied with your poetical
authorities.

Hal. — Nay, I can find authorities of all
kinds, statesmen, heroes, and philosophers ;
I can go back to Trajan, who was fond of
angling. Nelson wasf a good fly fisher, and

* The Friend, page 303, by S. T. Coleridge.

f I have known a person who fished with him at

DISTINGUISHED ANGLERS. /

as a proof of his passion for it, continued the
pursuit even with his left hand. Dr. Paley
was ardently attached to this amusement;
so much so, that when the Bishop of Dur-
ham inquired of him, when one of his most
important works would be finished, he said,
with great simplicity and good humour, " My
Lord, I shall work steadily at it when the
fly fishing season is over," as if this were a
business Qf his life. And I am rather re-
served in introducing living characters, or I
could give a list of the highest names of
Britain, belonging to modern times, in sci-
ence, letters, arts, and arms, who are orna-
ments of this fraternity, to use the expres-
sion borrowed from the freemasonry of our
forefathers.

Phys. — I do not find much difficulty in
understanding why warriors, and even states-
men, fishers of men, many of whom I have
known particularly fond of hunting and shoot-

Merton, in the Wandle. I hope this circumstance will
be mentioned in the next edition of that most exquisite
and touching Life of our Hero, by the Laureate, an
immortal monument raised by Genius to Valour.

8 SALMONIA.

ing, should likewise be attached to angling;
but I own, I am at a loss to find reasons for
a love of this pursuit amongst philosophers
and poets.

Hal. — The search after food is an instinct
belonging to our nature ; and from the savage
in his rudest and most primitive state, who
destroys a piece of game, or a fish, with a
club or spear, to man in the most cultivated
state of society, who employs artifice, ma-
chinery, and the resources of various other
animals, to secure his object, the origin of
the pleasure is similar, and its object the
same : but that kind of it requiring most art
may be said to characterize man in his highest
or intellectual state ; and the fisher for salmon
and trout with the fly employs not only ma-
chinery to assist his physical powers, but
applies sagacity to conquer difficulties ; and
the pleasure derived from ingenious resources
and devices, as well as from active pursuit,
belongs to this amusement. Then as to its
philosophical tendency, it is a pursuit of moral
discipline, requiring patience, forbearance,
and command of temper. As connected

SCENERY.

9

with natural science, it may be vaunted as
demanding a knowledge of the habits of a
considerable tribe of created beings — fishes,
and the animals that they prey upon, and an
acquaintance with the signs and tokens of
the weather and its changes, the nature of
waters, and of the atmosphere. As to its
poetical relations, it carries us into the most
wild and beautiful scenery of nature ; amongst
the mountain lakes, and the clear and lovely
streams that gush from the higher ranges of
elevated hills, or that make their way through
the cavities of calcareous strata. How de-
lightful in the early spring, after the dull
and tedious time of winter, when the frosts
disappear and the sunshine warms the earth
and waters, to wander forth by some clear
stream, to see the leaf bursting from the pur-
ple bud, to scent the odours of the bank per-
fumed by the violet, and enamelled, as it were,
with the primrose and the daisy ; to wander
upon the fresh turf below the shade, of trees,
whose bright blossoms are filled with the
music of the bee ; and on the surface of the
waters to view the gaudy flies sparkling like

10 SALMONIA.

animated gems in the sunbeams, whilst the
bright and beautiful trout is watching them
from below; to hear the twittering of the
water-birds, who, alarmed at your approach,
rapidly hide themselves beneath the flowers
and leaves of the water-lily ; and as the
season advances, to find all these objects
changed for others of the same kind, but
better and brighter, till the swallow and the
trout contend as it were for the gaudy May
fly, and till in pursuing your amusement in
the calm and balmy evening, you are sere-
naded by the songs of the cheerful thrush
and melodious nightingale, performing the
offices of paternal love, in thickets orna-
mented with the rose and woodbine.

Phys. — All these enjoyments might be ob-
tained without the necessity of torturing and
destroying an unfortunate animal, that the
true lover of nature would wish to see happy
in a scene of loveliness.

Hal. — If all men were Pythagoreans and
professed the Brahmin's creed, it would un-
doubtedly be cruel to destroy any form of
animated life ; but if fish are to be eaten, I

FISH POSSESSED OF LITTLE SENSIBILITY. 1 1

see no more harm in capturing them by skill
and ingenuity with an artificial fly, than in
pulling them out of the water by main force
with the net; and in general when taken by
the common fishermen, fish are permitted to
die slowly, and to suffer in the air, from the
want of their natural element ; whereas, every
good angler, as soon as his fish is landed,
either destroys his life immediately, if he is
wanted for food, or returns him into the
water.

Phys. — But do you think nothing of the
torture of the hook, and the fear of capture,
and the misery of struggling against the
powerful rod?

Hal. — I have already admitted the danger
of analysing, too closely, the moral character
of any of our field sports ; yet I think it can-
not be doubted that the nervous system of
fish, and cold blooded animals in general, is
less sensitive than that of warm blooded ani-
mals. The hook usually is fixed in the car-
tilaginous part of the mouth, where there are
no nerves ; and a proof that the sufferings
of a hooked fish cannot be great is found in

12 SALMONIA.

the circumstance, that though a trout has
been hooked and played for some minutes,
he will often, after his escape with the arti-
ficial fly in his mouth, take the natural fly,
and feed as if nothing had happened ; having
apparently learnt only from the experiment,
that the artificial fly is not proper for food.
And I have caught pikes with four or five
hooks in their mouths, and tackle which they
had broken only a few minutes before ; and
the hooks seemed to have had no other
effect than that of serving as a sort of sauce
piquant e, urging them to seize another mor-
sel of the same kind.

Phys. — Fishes are mute, and cannot plead,
even in the way that birds and quadrupeds
do, their own cause ; yet the instances you
quote only prove the intense character of
their appetites, which seem not so moderate
as Whiston imagined, in his strange philo-
sophical romance on the Deluge ; in which
he supposes, that in the antediluvian world
the heat was much greater than in this, and
that all terrestrial and aerial animals had
their passions so exalted by this high tern-

PRAISE OF FLY FISHING. 13

perature, that they were lost in sin, and de-
stroyed for their crimes ; but that fish, living
in a cooler element, were more correct in
their lives, and were therefore spared from
the destruction of the primitive world. You
have proved, by your examples, the intensity
of the appetite of hunger in fishes ; Spalan-
zani has given us another proof of the vio-
lence of a different appetite, or instinct, in a
cold-blooded animal, that has most of the
habits of the genus — the frog; which, in
the breeding season, remains attached to the
female, though a limb, or even his head, is
removed from the body.

Hal. — This is likewise in favour of my
argument, that the sensibility of this class of
animals to physical pain is comparatively
small.

Phys. — The advocates for a favourite
pursuit never want sophisms to defend it.
I have even heard it asserted, that a hare
enjoys being hunted. Yet I will allow that
fly fishing, after your vindication,, appears
amongst the least cruel of field sports ; — I
can go no farther ; as I have never thought

14 SALMONIA.

of trying it, I can say nothing of its agree-
ableness as an amusement, compared with
hunting and shooting.

Hal. — I wish that you would allow me to
convince you, that for a contemplative man,
as you are, and a lover of nature, it is far
superior, more tranquil, more philosophical,
and, after the period of early youth, more
fitted for a moderately active body and mind,
requiring less violent exertion ; and, pursued
in moderation, affording an exercise condu-
cive to health. There is a river, only a few
miles off, where I am sure I could obtain
permission for you, and our friend Poietes,
to fish.

Phys. — I am open to conviction on all
subjects, and have no objection to spend
one May day with you in this idle occupa-
tion ; premising, that you take at least one
other companion, who really loves fishing.

Hal. — You, who are so fond of natural
history, even should you not be amused by
fishing, will, I am sure, find objects of in-
terest on the banks of the river.

Phys. — I fear I am not entomologist

FIELD SPORTS RELATED TO NAT. HIST. 15

enough to follow the life of the May-fly, but
I shall willingly have my attention directed
to its habits. Indeed, I have often regretted
that sportsmen were not fonder of zoology;
they have so many opportunities, which other
persons do not possess, of illustrating the
origin and qualities of some of the most cu-
rious forms of animated nature ; the causes
and character of the migrations of animals ;
their relations to each other, and their place
and order in the general scheme of the uni-
verse. It has always appeared to me, that
the two great sources of change of place of
animals, was the providing of food for them-
selves, and resting places and food for their
young. The great supposed migrations of
herrings from the poles to the temperate
zone, have appeared to me to be only the
approach of successive shoals from deep to
shallow water, for the purpose of spawning.
The migrations of salmon and trout are evi-
dently for the purpose of depositing their ova,
or of finding food after they have spawned.
Swallows, and bee-eaters, decidedly pur-
sue flies over half a continent ; the scolo-

16 SALMONIA.

pax or snipe tribe, in like manner, search
for worms and larvae, — flying from those
countries where either frost or dryness pre-
vents them from boring, — making generally
small flights at a time, and resting on their
travels where they find food. And a jour-
ney from England to Africa, is no more for
an animal that can fly, with the wind, one
hundred miles in an hour, than a journey
for a Londoner to his seat in a distant pro-
vince. And the migrations of smaller fishes
or birds always occasions the migration of
larger ones, that prey on them. Thus, the
seal follows the salmon, in summer, to the
mouths of rivers ; the hake follows the her-
ring and pilchard ; hawks are seen in great
quantities, in the month of May, coming into
the east of Europe, after quails and land-
rails ; and locusts are followed by numerous
birds, that, fortunately for the agriculturist,
make them their prey.

Hal. — It is not possible to follow the
amusement of angling, without often having
your attention directed to the modes of life
of fishes, insects, and birds, and many cu-

PHRYGANE.E,

WIIH THEIR IMITATIONS.

PROPOSED FISHING EXCURSION. 17

rious and interesting facts, as it were, forced
upon your observation. I consider you,
(Physicus,) as pledged to make one of our
fishing party ; and I hope, in a few days, to
give you an invitation to meet a few worthy
friends on the banks of the Colne. And
you, (Poietes,) who, I know, are an initiated
disciple of Walton's school, will, I trust,
join us. We will endeavour to secure a fine
day ; two hours, in a light carriage with
good horses, will carry us to our ground;
and I think I can promise you green mea-
dows, shady trees, the song of the nightin-
gale, and a full and clear river.

Poiet. — This last is, in my opinion, the
most poetical object in nature. I will not
fail to obey your summons. Pliny has, as
well as I recollect, compared a river to
human life. I have never read the passage
in his works, but I have been a hundred
times struck with the analogy, particularly
amidst mountain scenery. The river, small
and clear in its origin, gushes forth from
rocks, falls into deep glens, and wantons and
meanders through a wild and picturesque

c

18 SALM0NIA.

country, nourishing only the uncultivated
tree or flower by its dew or spray. In this, its
state of infancy and youth, it may be com-
pared to the human mind in which fancy and
strength of imagination are predominant —
it is more beautiful than useful. When the
different rills or torrents join, and descend
into the plain, it becomes slow and stately in
its motions ; it is applied to move machinery,
to irrigate meadows, and to bear upon its
bosom the stately barge; — in this mature
state, it is deep, strong, and useful. As it
flows on towards the sea, it loses its force
and its motion, and at last, as it were, be-
comes lost and mingled with the mighty
abyss of waters.

Hal. — One might pursue the metaphor
still further, and say, that in its origin — its
thundering and foam, when it carries down
clay from the bank, and becomes impure, it
resembles the youthful mind, affected by
dangerous passions. And the influence of
a lake, in calming and clearing the turbid
water, may be compared to the effect of rea-
son in more mature life, when the calm,

A RIVER THE EMBLEM OF HUMAN LIFE. 19

deep, cool and unimpassioned mind is freed
from its fever, its troubles, bubbles, noise
and foam. And, above all, the sources of a
river, — which may be considered as belong-
ing to the atmosphere, — and its termination
in the ocean, may be regarded as imaging
the divine origin of the human mind, and
its being ultimately returned to, and lost in,
the Infinite and Eternal Intelligence from
which it originally sprung.

c 2

20 SALMONIA.

SECOND DAY.

HALIEUS — POIETES — OrNITIIER —

Physicus.

TROUT FISHING.— DENHAM, MAY, 1810.

Morning.

Hal. — I am delighted to see you, my wor-
thy friends, on the banks of the Colne ; and
am happy to be able to say, that my excel-
lent host has not only made you free of the
river for this day's angling, but insists upon
your dining with him, — wishes you to try
the evening fishing, and the fishing to-mor-
row morning, — and proposes to you, in
short, to give up twenty-four hours to the
delights of an angler's May-day.

Poiet. — We are deeply indebted to him ;
and I hardly know how we can accept his
offer, without laying ourselves under too
great an obligation.

TROUT FISHING. 21

Hal. — Fear not: lie is as noble minded
a man as ever delighted in good offices ; and
so benevolent, that I am sure he will be
almost as happy in knowing you are. amused,
as you can be in your sport ; and he hopes
for an additional satisfaction in the pleasure
of your conversation.

Poiet. — So let it be.

Hal. — I will take you to the house; you
shall make your bow, and then you will be
all free to follow your own fancies. Remem-
ber, the dinner hour is five; the dressing
bell rings at half-past four ; be punctual to
this engagement, from which you will be free
at seven.

Poiet. — This is really a very charming-
villa scene, I may almost say, a pastoral
scene. The meadows have the verdure
which even the Londoners enjoy as a pecu-
liar feature of the English landscape. The
river is clear, and has all the beauties of a
trout stream of the larger size, — there rapid,
and here still, and there tumbling in foam
and fury over abrupt dams upon clean gra-
vel, as if pursuing a natural course. And

22 SALMONIA.

that island with its poplars and willows, and
the flies making it their summer paradise,
and its little fishing house, are all in charac-
ter; and if not extremely picturesque, it is
at least a very pleasant scene, from its ver-
dure and pure waters, for the lovers of our
innocent amusement.

Hal. — It is ten o'clock: you may put up
your rods, or take rods from the hall; for so
hospitable is the master of this mansion, that
every thing is supplied to our hands. And
Physicus, as you are the only one of our
party ignorant of the art of fly fishing, I will
fit you with a rod and flies; and let me ad-
vise you to begin with a line shorter than
your rod, and throw at first slowly and with-
out effort, and imitate us as well as you can.
As for precepts, they are of little value,
practice and imitation will make you an
angler.

Poietv — I shall put together my rod, and
fish with my own flies. It may be fancy,
but I always think I do best with tackle
with which I am used to fish.

Hal. — You are right ; for fancy is al-

FLIES.

23

ways something: and when we believe that
we can do things better in a particular way,
we really do, by the influence of imagination,
perform them both better and with less effort.
I agree with moralists, that the standard of
virtue should be placed higher than any one
can reach; for in trying to rise, man will
attain a more excellent state of being than
if no effort were made. But to our business.
As far as the perfection of the material for
the angler is concerned, the flies you find on
this table are as good as can be made, and
for this season of the year, there is no great
variety in this river. We have had lately
some warm days, and though it is but the
18th of May, yet I know the May fly has
been out for three or four days, and this is
the best period of this destructive season for
the fisherman. There are, I observe, many
male flies on the high trees, and some females
on the alders.

Phys. — But I see flies already on the
water, which seem of various colours, —
brown and grey, and some very pale, — and
the trout appear to rise at them eagerly.

CM SALMONIA.

Hal. — The fly you see is called by fisher-
men the alder fly, and is generally in large
quantities before the May fly. Imitations
of this fly, and of the green and the grey
drake of different shades, are the only ones
you will need this morning, though I doubt
if the last can be much used, as the grey
drake is not yet on the water in any quantity.

Phys. — Pray can you give us any account
of these curious little animals ?

Hal. — We ought to draw upon your
stores of science for information on these
subjects.

Phys. — I really know nothing of Entomo-
logy, but I am desirous of acquiring know-
ledge.

Hal. — I have made few observations on
flies as a philosophical naturalist. What I
know I will state, but at another time. But
see, the green drake is descending upon the
water, and some are leaving the alders to
sport in the sunshine, and to enjoy the plea-
sures of their brilliant, though short exist-
ence ; and their life, naturally ephemeral, is
made one of scarcely a moment, by the fishes

FLIES. 25

and birds: that which the swallow or the
duck spares is caught by the fish. The
fly is new, and in the imitation, I recommend
the olive tint, or what the Irish call, the green
monkey. That is, an artificial fly, with a
wing of dyed yellow drake's feather, a body
of yellow monkey's fur, and a small quantity
of olive mohair for legs. For myself, I shall
fish for some time with a large red alder fly,
and I dare say, with as much success. That
is, with a fly with a dark peacock's harle for
body, a red hackle for legs, and wings of the
landrail below, and starling above.

PoiEf. — The water is quite in motion:
what noble fish I see on the feed ! I never
beheld a finer sight, though I have often seen
the May fly on well stocked waters.

Hal. — This river is most strictly pre-
served ; not a fish has been killed here since
last August, and this is the moment when the
large fish come to the surface, and leave
their cad bait search and minnow hunting.
But I have hardly time to talk ; I have
hold of a good fish: they take either alder
or May fly, and having never been fished

2G SALMONIA.

for this year, they make no distinction, and
greedily seize any small object in motion on
the water. You see the alder fly is quite as
successful as the May fly ; but there is a fish
which has refused it, and because he has
been feeding, glutton like, on the May fly :
that is the fifth he has swallowed in a minute.
Now I shall throw the drake a foot above
him. It floats down, and he has taken it. A
fine fish; I think at least 41bs. This is the
largest fish we have yet seen, but in the deep
water still lower down, there are larger fish.
One of 5 lbs. I have known taken here, and
once a fish a little short only of Gibs.

Poiet. — I have just landed a fish which I
suppose you will consider as a small one;
yet I am tempted to kill him.

Hal. — He is not a fish to kill, throw him
back, he is much under 2 lbs. and, as I ought
to have told you before, we are not allowed
to kill any fish of less size ; and I am sure
we shall all have more than we ought to
carry away even of this size. Pray put him
into the well, or rather give him to the fish-
erman to turn back into the water.

OBJECT OF FISHING.

27

Poiet. — I cannot say I approve of this
manner of fishing : I lose my labour.

Hal. — As the object of your fishing, I
hope, is innocent amusement, you can enjoy
this, and show your skill in catching the
animal; and if every fish that took the May
fly were to be killed, there would be an end
to the sport in the river, for none would re-
main for next year.

Phys. — The number of flies seems to in-
crease as the day advances, and I never saw
a more animated water scene : all nature
seems alive; even the water-wagtails have
joined the attack upon these helpless and
lovely creations from the waters.

Hal. — It is now one o'clock; and between
twelve and three is the time when the May
fly rises with most vigour. It is a very warm
day, and with such a quantity of fly, every
fish in the river will probably be soon feed-
ing. See, below the wear, there are two or
three large trout lately come out; and from
the quiet way in which they swallow their
prey, and from the size of the tranquil un-
dulation that follows their rise, I suspect

28 SALMONIA.

they are the giants of this river. Try if you
cannot reach them: one is near the bank in
a convenient place for a throw, for the water
is sufficiently rough to hide the deception,
and these large fish do not take the fly well
in calm water, though with natural flies on
the hook they might all be raised.

Poiet. — I have him ! Alas ! he has broken
me, and carried away half my bottom line.
He must have been a fish of 7 or 8 lbs.
What a dash he made ! He carried off my
fly by main force.

Hal. — You should have allowed your reel
to play and your line to run : you held him
too tight.

Poiet. — He was too powerful a fish for
my tackle ; and even if I had done so,
would probably have broken me by running
amongst the weeds.

Hal. — Let me tell you, my friend, you
should never allow a fish to run to the weeds,
or to strike across the stream; you should
carry him always down stream, keeping his
head high, and in the current. If in a
weedy river you allow a large fish to run up

FISH ESCAPE.

29

stream, you are almost sure to lose him.
There, I have hooked the companion of
your lost fish, on the other side of the
stream, — a powerful creature : he tries, you
see, to make way to the weeds, but I hold
him tight.

Poiet. — I see you are obliged to run with
him, and have carried him safely through
the weeds.

Hal. — I have him now in the rapids on
the shallow, and I have no fear of losing
him, unless he strikes the hook out of his
mouth.

Poiet. — He springs again and again.
Hal. — He is off; in one of these somersets
he detached the steel, and he now leaps to
celebrate his escape. We will leave this
place, where there are more great fish, and
return to it after a while, when the alarm
produced by our operations has subsided.

^ ^ * *

It is now a quarter of an hour since we
left .the large pool: let vis return to it; I see
the fish are again rising.

.SO SALMONIA.

Poiet. — I am astonished! It appears to
me that the very same fish are again feeding.
There are two fish rising nearly in the same
spot where they rose before: can they be
the same fish?

Hal. — It is very possible. It is not likely
that three other fish of that size should occu-
py the same haunts.

Poiet. — But I thought after a fish had
been hooked, he remained sick and sulky
for some time, feeling his wounds uncom-
fortable.

Hal. — The fish that I hooked is not
rising in the same place, and therefore, pro-
bably was hurt by the hook; but one of
these fish seems to be the same that carried
off your fly, and it is probable that the hook
only struck him in a part of the mouth wh.ere
there are no nerves; and that he suffered
little at the moment, and does not now feel
his annoyance.

Poiet. — I have seen him take four or five
flies : I shall throw over him. There, he
rose, but refused the fly. He has at least
learnt from the experiment he has made,

THE NATURAL FLY. 31

to distinguish the natural from the artificial
fly.

Hal. — This, I think, always happens after
a fish has been hooked with an artificial fly.
He becomes cautious, and is seldom caught
that year, at least with the same means in
the same pool : but I dare say that fish
might be taken with a natural fly; or, what
is better, two upon the hook.

Poiet. — Pray try him.

Hal. — I am no great artist at this kind of
angling, but I will for once try my fortune,
though it is hardly fair play ; and it is rather
to endeavour to recover your tackle, than
for the sake of the fish ; for this method I
seldom practise, and never encourage.

Poiet. — Pray make no apologies for the
trial. Such a fish — certainly a monster, for
this river — should be caught, by fair means,
if possible, but caught, by any means.

Hal. — You lost that fish, and you over-
rate his size, as you will see, if I have good
fortune. I put my live flies on the hook
with some regret and some disgust. I will
not employ another person to be my minister

SALMONIA.

of cruelty, as I remember a lady of fashion
once did, who was very fond of fishing for
perch, and who employed her daughter, a
little girl of nine years of age, to pass the
hook through the body of the worm ! Now
there is a good wind, and the fish has just
taken a natural fly. I shall drop the flies, if
possible, within a few inches of his nose.
He has risen. He is caught ! I must carry
him down stream to avoid the bed of weeds
above. I now have him on fair ground, and
he fights with vigour. Fortunately, my silk
worm gut is very strong, for he is not a fish
to be trifled with. He begins to be tired;
prepare the net. We have him safe, and
see your link hangs to his lower jaw: the
hook had struck the cartilage on the out-
side of the bow, and the fly, probably, was
scarcely felt by him.

Phys. — I am surprised! That fish evi-
dently had discovered that the artificial fly
was a dangerous bait, yet he took the natural
fly which was on a hook, and when the silk
worm gut must have been visible.

PRICKED TROUT. 33

Hal. — I do not think he saw either the
gut or the hook. In very bright weather
and water, I have known very shy fish refuse
even a hook baited with the natural fly,
scared probably by some appearance of hook
or gut. The vision of fishes when the sur-
face is not ruffled is sufficiently keen. I have
seen them rise at gnats so small as to be
scarcely visible to my eye.

Phys. — You just now said, that a fish
pricked by the hook of an artificial fly would
not usually take it again that season.

Hal. — I cannot be exact on that point: I
have known a fish that I have pricked retain
his station in the river, and refuse the artifi-
cial fly, day after day, for weeks together ;
but his memory may have been kept awake
by this practice, and the recollection seems
local and associated with surrounding ob-
jects; and if a pricked trout is chased into
another pool, he will, I believe, soon again
take the artificial fly. Or if the objects
around him are changed, as in Autumn, by
the decay of weeds, or by their being cut,

D

34 SALMONIA.

the same thing happens; and a flood, or a
rough wind, I believe, assists the fly fisher,
not merely by obscuring the vision of the
fish, but, in a river much fished, by changing
the appearance of their haunts : large trouts
almost always occupy particular stations, un-
der, or close to, a large stone or tree; and,
probably, most of their recollected sensations
are connected with this dwelling.

Phys. — I think I understand you, that the
memory of the danger and pain does not
last long, unless there is a permanent sensa-
tion with which it can remain associated, —
such as the station of the trout; and that
the recollection of the mere form of the ar-
tificial fly, without this association, is eva-
nescent.

Orn. — You are diving into metaphysics;
yet I think, in fowling, I have observed that
the memory of birds is local. A woodcock,
that has been much shot at and scared in a
particular wood, runs to the side where he
has usually escaped, the moment he hears
the dogs ; but if driven into a new wood, he

TROUT OF THE COLNE. 35

seems to lose his acquired habits of caution,
and becomes stupid.

Poiet. — This great fish, that you have
just caught, must be nearly of the weight I
assigned to him.

Hal. — O no; he is, I think, above 51bs.
but not 6 lbs. ; but we can form a more cor-
rect opinion by measuring him, which I can
easily do, the but of my rod being a mea-
sure. He measures, from nose to fork, a
very little less than twenty-four inches, and,
consequently, upon the scale which is appro-
priate to well-fed trouts, should weigh 5 lbs.
lOoz. — which, within an ounce, I doubt not,
is his weight.

Phys. — O, I see you take the mathemati-
cal law, that similar solids are to each other
in the triplicate ratio of one of their dimen-
sions.

Hal. — You are right.

Phys. — But I think you are below the
mark, for this appears to me an extraordi-
narily thick fish.

d 2

36

SALMONIA.

TROUT FROM THE COLNE.

Hal. — He is a clean fish, but, in propor-
tion, not so thick as my model, which was a
fish of 17 inches by 9 inches, and weighed
2 lbs. — this is my standard solid. We will
try him. Ho! Mrs. B.! — bring your scales,
and weigh this fish. There, you see, he
weighs 51bs. lOjoz.

Phys. — Well, I am pleased to see this
fish, and amused with your sport ; but
though I have been imitating you in throw-
ing the fly, as well as I can, yet not a trout
has taken notice of my fly, and they seem
scared by my appearance.

THROWING THE FLY. 37

Hal. — Let me see you perform. There
are two good trout taking flies opposite that
bank, which you can reach. You threw
too much line into the water, and scared
them both ; but I will take you to the rapid
of the Tumbling Bay, where the river falls ;
there the quickness of the stream will pre-
vent your line from falling deep, and the
foam will conceal your person from the view
of the fish. And let me advise you to fish
only in the rapids, till you have gained some
experience in throwing the fly. There are
several fish rising in that stream.

Phys. — I have raised one, but he refused
my fly.

Hal. — Now you have a fish.

Phys. — I am delighted; — but he is a small
one.

Hal. — Unluckily, it is a dace.

Phys. — I have now a larger fish, which
has pulled my line out.

Hal. — Give him time. That is a good
trout. Now wind up ; he is tired, and your
own. I will land him. He is a fish to keep,
being above 2 lbs.

38 SALMONIA.

Phys. — I am well pleased.

Hal. — There are many larger trouts here ;
go on fishing, and you will hook some of
them. And when you are tired of this
rapid, you will find another a quarter of a
mile below. And continue to fish with a
short line, and drop your fly, or let it be
carried by the wind on the water, as lightly
as possible. Well, Poietes, what success ?

Poiet. — I have been fishing in the stream
above ; but the flies are so abundant, that
the large fish will not take my artificial fly,
and I have caught only three fish, all of
which the fisherman has thrown into the
water, though I am sure one of them was
more than 2 lbs.

Hal. — You may trust his knowledge :
with a new angler, our keeper would be apt
rather to favour the fisherman than the fish.
But we will have all fish you wish to be
killed, and above 2 lbs., put into the well of
the boat, where they can be examined, and,
if you desire, weighed and measured, and
such kept as are worth keeping. No good
angler should kill a fish, if possible, till he is

TROUT DESCRIBED. 39

needed to be crimped ; for the sooner he is
dressed after this operation, the better ; —
and I assure you, a well-fed trout of the
Come, crimped and cooled ten minutes be-
fore he is wanted for the kettle or the grid-
iron, is a fish little inferior to the best salmon
of the best rivers. It is now nearly two
o'clock, and there is a cloud over the sun ;
the fly is becoming less abundant; you are
now likely, Poietes, to have better sport. Try
in that deep pool, below the Tumbling Bay ;
I see two or three good fish rising there, and
there is a lively breeze. The largest fish
refuses your fly again and again ; try the
others. There, you have hooked him ; now
carry him down stream, and keep his head
high, out of the weeds. He plunges and
fights with great force ; — he is the best-fed
fish I have yet seen at the end of the line,
and will weigh more, in proportion to his
length. I will land him for you. There he
is, — and measures 19 inches ; and I dare
say his weight is not much short of 3 lbs.
We will preserve him in the well.

40 SALMONIA.

Poiet. — He has hardly any spots, and is
silvery all over ; and the whole of the lower
part of his body is beautifully clean.

Hal. — He is likewise broad backed; and
you may observe his few spots are black,
and these are very small. I have always
observed, in this river, that the nearer the
fish approach to perfection, the colour of
the body becomes more uniform, — pale olive
above, and bright silver below ; and these
qualities are always connected with a small
head, — or rather, an oval body, and deep-
red flesh.

Poiet. — May not the red spots be marks
of disease — a hectic kind of beauty? For
I observed in a very thin and poor fish, and
great-headed, that I caught an hour ago,
which had leeches sticking to it, a number
of red spots, and a long black back, and
black or bluish marks even on the belly.

Hal. — I do not think red spots a symptom
of disease ; for I have seen fish in other
rivers, and even small fish in this river,
in perfectly good season, with red spots ;

SPOTS ON TROUT.

41

TROUT FROM THE WANDLE.

but the colours of fish are very capricious,
and depend upon causes which cannot be
easily defined. I have known fish, from
some lakes in Ireland, mottled in a most sin-
gular way, — their colour being like that of
the tortoise: the nature of the water, expo-
sure to the light, and probably their kind of
food, produce these effects. I think it pos-
sible, when trout feed much on hard sub-
stances— such as shell-fish and the ova of
other fish — they have more red spots, and
redder fins. This is the case with the gil-
laroo and the char, who feed in this manner ;

4£ SALMONIA.

and the trout, that have similar habits, might
be expected to resemble them. When trout
feed most on small fish, as minnows, and on
flies, they have more tendency to become
spotted with small black spots, and are gene-
rally more silvery. The Colne trout are, in
their advanced state, of this kind; and so
are the trout, called in Ireland buddocks
and dolochans, found in Loch Neah. Par-
ticular character becomes hereditary, and
the effects of a peculiar food influence the
appearance of the next generation. I hope,
Ornither, you have had good sport.

Orn. — Excellent ! Since you left me,
below the wear, I have hooked at least
fifteen or twenty good fish, and landed and
saved eight above 2 lbs. ; but I have taken
no fish like the great one which you caught
by poaching with the natural flies. The
trout rose wonderfully well within the last
quarter of an hour, but they are now all
still; and the river, which was in such active
motion, is now perfectly quiet, and seems
asleep and almost dead.

Hal. — It is past four o'clock, and some

PERCH.

43

dark, heavy clouds are come on, — the fly is
off. It is almost the hour for the signal of
the dressing bell ; and there is nothing more
to be done now till evening. But see ! our
host is come to examine our fish in the well,
and to inquire about our sport; and, I dare
say, will order some of our fish to be dressed
for the table.

Host. — I hope, gentlemen, you have been
amused?

Hal. — Most highly, sir. As a proof of
it, there are in the fish-well eighteen good
trout, — and one not much short of 6 lbs. ;
three above 4 lbs., and four above 3 lbs. in
weight. I hope you will order that great
fish for your dinner.

Host. — We will see. He is a fine fish,
and fit for a present, even for a Prince — and
you shall take him to a Prince. Here is a
fish, and there another, of the two next
sizes, which I am sure will cut red. Pre-
pare them, fisherman. And, Halieus, you
shall catch two or three perch, for another
dish; I know there are some good ones be-
low the piles of the wear; I saw them hunt-

44 SALMONIA.

ing small fish there yesterday morning.
Some minnows, ho ! — and the perch rods !

Hal. — I am tired, sir, and would willingly
avoid minnow fishing after such a morning's
sport.

Host. — Come, then, I will be a fisher for
the table. I have one — and another, that
will weigh nearly a pound a piece. Now,
there is a cunning perch that has stolen my
minnow; I know he is a large one. He has
robbed me again and again ; and if I fish on
in this way, with the hook through the up-
per lip, will, I dare say, carry away all the
minnows in the kettle. I shall put on a
strong small hook, on a stout, though fine,
gut, with slender wire round the top, and
pass the hook through the back fin of the
minnow, and try my sagacity against his.
Lo! I have him! — and a very strong fish he
is, and gone to the bottom ; but even though
the greatest perch in the river, he cannot
bite the gut, — he will soon be tired and
taken. He now comes up, and is landed,
He must be above 3 lbs. — a magnificent
perch ! Kill him and crimp him, fisherman ;

PERCH. 45

take our two trout, and the three perch,
to the kitchen, and let them be dressed as
usual. You shall have a good dish of fish,
worthy of such determined anglers. But I
see one of your party coming up by the
side of the river, who seems tired and out of
spirits.

Hal. — It is Physicus, who has this day
commenced his career as a fly fisher; and
who, I dare say, has been as successful as
the uninitiated generally are. I hope you
have followed my advice and been suc-
cessful ?

Phys. — I caught two trout in the rapid
where you left me ; but they were small, and
the fisherman threw them in. Below the
wear, in the quick stream, I caught two
dace, and what astonished me very much,
a perch, which you see here, and which I
thought never took the fly.

Hal. — O yes, sometimes; and particularly
when it is below the surface : and what more ?

Phys. — By creeping on my knees., and
dropping my fly over the bank, I hooked a
very large fish which I saw rising, and

4G SALMONIA.

which was like a salmon; but he was too
strong for my tackle, ran out all my line,
and at last broke off by entangling my link
in a post in the river. I have been very
unlucky! I am sure that fish was larger
than the great one you took with the natural

Hal. — Come, you have been initiated,
and I see begin to take an interest in the
sport, and I do not despair of your becoming
a distinguished angler.

Phys. — With time and some patience:
but I am sorry I tortured that poor fish
without taking him.

Hal. — I dare say you are.

( They go to dinner.)

* # # #

(They return from the house.)

EVENING.

Hal. — You have, I am sure, Gentlemen,
dined well; no one ever dined otherwise in
this house. It is a beautiful calm evening,
and many fish might be caught where we

EVENING FISHING. 47

fished in the morning; but I will take you
to another part of the river; you shall each
catch a fish, and then we will give over ; for
the evenings sport should be kept till a late
season, — July or August, — when there is
little fly on in the day time : and it would be
spoiling the diversion of our host, to catch
or prick all the fish in the upper water; and
with a gentleman so truly liberal, and so
profuse of his means of giving pleasure to
others, no improper liberties should be taken.
I shall not fish myself, but shall have my
pleasure in witnessing your sport. It must
be in a boat, and you must steal slowly up
the calm water, and glide like aerial beings
on the surface, making no motion in the
water, and showing no shadow. Your fly
must be an orange or brown palmer with a
yellow body ; for the grey drake is not yet
on the water. The fish here are large, and
the river weedy, so you must take care of
your fish and your tackle.

Poiet. — We have at least passed over half-
a-mile of water, and have seen no fish rise;
yet there is a yellowish or reddish fly in the

48 SALMONIA.

air, which moves like a drake ; and there are
clouds of pale brown flies encircling the
alders. Now I think I see a large trout rise
below that alder.

Hal. — That is not a trout, for he rises in
a different place now, and is probably a large
roach or chub ; do not waste your time upon
him. You may always know a large trout
when feeding in the evening. He rises con-
tinuously, or at small intervals, — in a still
water almost always in the same place, —
and makes little noise, — barely elevating his
mouth to suck in the fly, and sometimes
showing his back fin and tail. A large circle
spreads around him, but there are seldom
any bubbles when he breaks the water,
which usually indicate the coarser fish: we
will wait a few minutes ; I know there must
be trout here and the sun is setting, and the
yellow fly, or dun cut, coming on the water.
See, beneath that alder is a trout rising, and
now there is another thirty yards higher up.
Take care, get your line out in another part
of the water, and in order, for reaching the
fish, and do not throw till you are sure you

EVENING FISHING. 49

can reach the spot, and throw at least half-
a-yarcl above the fish.

Orn. — He rose, I suppose, at a natural
fly, the moment before my fly touched the
water.

Hal. — Try again. You have hooked
him, and you have done well not to strike
when he rose. Now hold him tight, wind
up your line, and carry him down the stream.
Push the boat down stream, fisherman. Keep
your fish's head up. He begins to tire, —
and there is landed. A fine well-fed fish,
not much less than 4 lbs. Throw him into
the well. Now, Poietes, try that fish rising
above, — and there are two more.

Poiet. — I have him!

Hal. — Take care. He has turned you,
and you have suffered him to run out your
line, and he is gone into the weeds under
the willow : let him fall down stream.

Poiet. — I cannot get him out.

Hal. — Then wind up. I fear he is lost,
yet we will try to recover him by taking the
boat up. The line is loose: he has left the
link entangled in the weeds, and carried

e

50 SALMONIA.

your fly with him. He must have been a
large fish, or he could not have disentangled
himself from so strong a gut. Try again,
there are fish now rising above and below;
where the water is in motion, opposite that
willow, there are two fish rising.

Poiet. — I have one of them.

Hal. — Now you are doing well. Down
with the boat, and drag your fish downwards.
Continue to do so, as there are weeds all
round you. You can master him now ; keep
him high, and he is your own. Put the net
under him, and bring him into the boat ; he
is a well fed fish, but not of the proper size
for a victim: about 2 lbs. Now, Physicus,
try your fortune with the fish above that
rises so merrily still. You have him ! Now
use him as Poietes did the last. Very well;
I see he is a large fish, — take your time.
He is landed; a fish nearly of 3 lbs. and in
excellent season.

Phys. — An che Io son Piscatore — I am
too a fisherman — a triumph.

Hal. — Now we have finished our fishing,
and must return to the light supper of our

FLIES. .51

host. It would be easy now, and between
this hour and ten, to take half-a-dozen large
fish in this part of the water; but for the
reason I have already stated, it would be
improper.

Poiet. — Pray would not this be a good
part of the water for day fishing.

Hal. — Undoubtedly, a skilful angler might
take fish here in the day; but the bank is
shaded by trees, there is seldom any sensible
wind on the water, and the apparatus and
the boat in motion are easily perceived in
the daylight; and the water is so deep, that
a great quantity of fly is necessary to call up
the fish; and in general there is a larger
quantity of fly in hot summer evenings, than
even in the brightest sunshine.

Phys. — The fly appears to me like a moth
that is now on the water.

Hal. — It is.

Poiet. — What flies come on late in the
season here?

Hal. — Flies of the same species; some
darker, and some with a deeper shade of
red; and there are likewise the true moths,

E 2

52 SALMONIA.

the brown and white, which, in June and
July, are seized with avidity by the fish; and
being large flies, take large fish.

Orn. — Surely the May fly season is not
the only season for day fishing in this river?

Hal. — Certainly not. There are as many
fish to be taken perhaps in the Spring fish-
ing; but in this deep river they are seldom
in good season till the May fly has been on,
and a fortnight hence they will be still better
than even now. In September there may
be good fish taken here; but the autumnal
flies are less plentiful in this river than the
spring flies.

Phys. — Pray tell me what are the species
of fly which take in these two seasons.

Hal. — You know that trout spawn or
deposit their ova and seminal fluid in the
end of the autumn or beginning of winter,
from the middle of November till the begin-
ning of January, their maturity depending
upon the temperature of the season, their
quantity of food, &c. For some time (a
month or six weeks) before they are pre-
pared for the sexual function, or that of re-

FLIES. 53

production, they become less fat, particularly
the females ; the large quantity of eggs and
their size probably affecting the health of
the animal, and compressing generally the
vital organs in the abdomen. They are at
least six weeks or two months after they
have spawned before they recover their
flesh: and the time when these fish are at
the worst, is likewise the worst time for fly
fishing, both on account of the cold weather
and because there are fewer flies on the
water than at any other season. Even in
December and January there are a few
small gnats or water flies on the water in
the middle of the day, in bright days, or
when there is sunshine. These are gene-
rally black, and they escape the influence of
the frost by the effects of light on their
black bodies, and probably by the extreme
rapidity of the motions of their fluids, and
generally of their organs. They are found
only at the surface of the water, where the
temperature must be above the freezing
point. In February a few double winged
water flies which swim down the stream are

54 SALMON I A.

usually found in the middle of the day, —
such as the willow fly; and the cow dung fly
is sometimes carried on the water by winds.
In March there are several flies found on
most rivers. The grannam or green tail fly
with a wing like a moth comes on generally
morning and evening, from five till eight
o'clock, a. m. in mild weather in the end of
March and through April. Then there are
the blue and the brown, both Ephemera?,
which come on, the first in dark days, the
second in bright days ; these flies when well
imitated, are very destructive to fish. The
first is a small fly with a palish yellow body,
and slender beautiful wings, which rest on
the back as it floats down the water. The
second, called the cob in Wales, is three or
four times as large, and has brown wings,
which likewise protrude from the back, and
its wings are shaded like those of a par-
tridge, brown and yellow brown. These
three kinds of flies lay their eggs in the
water, which produce larvae that remain in
the state of worms, feeding and breathing
in the water till they are prepared for their

FLIES. 55

metamorphosis and quit the bottoms of the
rivers, and the mud and stones, for the sur-
face, and the light and air. The brown fly
usually disappears before the end of April,
likewise the grannam; but of the blue dun,
there is a succession of different tints, or
species, or varieties, which appear in the
middle of the day all the summer and
autumn long. These are the principal flies
on the Wandle — the best and clearest
stream near London. In early spring these
flies have dark olive bodies; in the end of
April and the beginning of May they are
found yellow; and in the summer they be-
come cinnamon coloured; and again, as the
winter approaches, gain a darker hue. I
do not, however, mean to say that they are
the same flies, but more probably successive
generations of Ephemerae of the same spe-
cies. The excess of heat seems equally
unfavourable, as the excess of cold, to the
existence of the smaller species of water in-
sects, which during the intensity of sunshine
seldom appear in summer, but rise morning
and evening only. The blue dun has in

56 SALMONIA.

June and July a yellow body, and there is a
water fly which in the evening is generally
found before the moths appear, called the
red spinner. Towards the end of August,
the Ephemerae appear again in the middle
of the day : a very pale small Ephemera
which is of the same colour as that which is
seen in some rivers in the beginning of July.
In September and October this kind of fly
is found with an olive body, and it becomes
darker in October, and paler in November.
There are two other flies which appear in
the end of September and continue during
October if the weather be mild: a large
yellow fly with a fleshy body and wings like
a moth; and a small fly with four wings,
with a dark or claret coloured body, that
when it falls on the water has its wings like
the great yellow fly, flat on its back. This,
or a claret bodied fly, very similar in cha-
racter, may be likewise found in March or
April, on some waters. In this river I have
often caught many large trout in April and
the beginning of May, with the blue dun,
having the yellow body; and in the upper

FLIES — FISHING SEASON. 57

part of the stream below St. Albans, and
between that and Watford, I have some-
times, even as early as April, caught fish in
good condition: but the true season for the
Colne is the season of the May fly. The
same may be said of most of the large
English rivers containing large trouts, and
abounding in May fly: — such as the Test
and the Kennet; the one running by Stock-
bridge, the other by Hunger ford. But in
the Wandle at Carshalton and Beddington,
the May fly is not found ; and the little
blues are the constant, and when well imi-
tated, killing flies on this water; to which
may be joined a dark alder fly, and a red
evening fly. In the Avon, at Ringwood and
Fordingbridge, the May fly is likewise a
killing fly; but as this is a grayling river,
the other flies, particularly the grannam and
blue and brown, are good in spring, and the
alder fly or pale blue later, and the blue
dun in September and October, and even
November. In the streams in the moun-
tainous parts of Britain, the spring and
autumnal flies are by far the most killing.

58 SALMONIA.

The Usk was formerly a very productive
trout stream, and the fish being well fed by
the worms washed down by the winter
floods, were often in good season, cutting
red, in March, and the beginning of April :
and at this season the blues and browns,
particularly when the water was a little
stained after a small flood, afforded the
angler good sport. In Herefordshire and
Derbyshire, where trout and grayling are
often found together, the same periods are
generally best for angling; but in the Dove,
Lathkill, and Wye, with the natural May
fly many fish may be taken ; and in old
times, in peculiarly windy days, or high and
troubled water, even the artificial May fly,
according to Cotton, was very killing.

Poiet. — I have heard various accounts
of the excellent fishing in some of the great
lakes in Ireland. Can you tell us anything
on the subject, and if the same flies may be
used in that island.

Hal. — I have been several times in
Ireland, but never at this season, which
is considered as best for lake fishing. I

FISHING SEASON. 59

have heard that in some of the lakes in
Westmeath, very large trout, and great
quantities may be taken in the beginning
of June, with the very flies we have been
using this day. Wind is necessary; and
a good angler sometimes takes in a day,
or rather formerly took, from ten to twelve
fish, which weighed from 3 to 10 lbs.
and which occasionally were even larger.
In the summer after June, and in the
autumn, the only seasons when I have fished
in Ireland, I have seldom taken any large
trout; but in the river Boyle, late in Octo-
ber, after a flood, I once had some sport
with these fish, that were running up the
river from Lock Key to spawn. I caught
one day two above 3 lbs. that took a large
reddish-brown fly of the same kind as a sal-
mon fly ; and I saw some taken that weighed
5 lbs. and heard of one that equalled 9 lbs.
These fish were in good season, even at this
late period, and had no spots, but were co-
loured red and brown — mottled like tortoise-
shell, only with smaller bars. I have in July
likewise fished in Loch Con, near Ballina,

60 SALMONIA.

and Loch Melvin, near Ballyshannon. In
Loch Con, the party caught many small
good trout, that cut red; and in the other I
caught a very few trout only, but as many of
them were gillaroo or gizzard trout as com-
mon trout.

Poiet. — This must have been an interest-
ing kind of fishing. In what does the gilla-
roo differ from the trout ?

Hal. — In appearance very little, except
that they have more red spots, and a yellow
or golden coloured belly and fins, and are
generally a broader and thicker fish ; but in-
ternally they have a different organization,
possessing a large thick muscular stomach,
which has been improperly compared to a
fowl's, and which generally contains a quan-
tity of small shell fish of three or four kinds :
and though in those I caught the stomachs
were full of these shell fish, yet they rose
greedily at the fly.

Poiet. — Are they not common trout
which have gained the habit of feeding on
shell fish?

Hal. — If so, they have been altered in a

GILLAROO. 61

succession of generations. The common
trouts of this lake have stomachs like other
trouts, which never as far as my experience
has gone contain shell fish ; but of the gilla-
roo trout, I have caught with a fly some not
longer than my finger, which have had as
perfect a hard stomach as the larger ones,
with the coats as thick in proportion, and
the same shells within ; so that this animal is
at least now a distinct species, and is a sort
of link between the trout and char, which
has a stomach of the same kind with the
gillaroo, but not quite so thick, and which
feeds at the bottom in the same way. I have
often looked in the lakes abroad for gillaroo
trout, and never found one. In a large lake
at the foot of the Crest of the Brenner — ■
above 4,000 feet above the level of the sea,
I once caught some trout, which, from their
thickness and red spots, I suspected were
gillaroo, but on opening the stomach I found
I was mistaken, it had no particular thick-
ness, and was filled with grasshoppers; but
there were char, which fed on shell fish, in
the same lake.

62 SALMONIA.

Poiet. — Are water flies found on all
rivers ?

Hal. — This is a question which I find it
impossible to answer; yet from my own ex-
perience I should suppose, that in all the
habitable parts of the Globe certain water
flies exist wherever there is running water.
Even in the most ardent temperature, gnats
and musquitoes are found, which lay their
congeries of eggs on the water, which, when
hatched, become first worms, afterwards
small shrimp-like aurelia, and lastly flies.
There are a great number of the largest
species of these flies on stagnant waters and
lakes, which form a part of the food of va-
rious fishes, principally of the carp kind:
but the true fisherman's flies, — those which
are imitated in our art, principally belong to
the northern, or at least temperate part of
Europe, and I believe are nowhere more
abundant than in England. It appears
to me, that since I have been a fisherman,
which is now the best part of half a century,
I have observed in some rivers where I have
been accustomed to fish habitually, a dimi-

FLIES. G3

nution of the quantity of fly. There were
always some seasons in which the tempera-
ture was favourable to a quantity of fly; for
instance, fine warm days in spring for the
grannam, or brown fly; and like days in
May and June for the alder fly, May fly,
and stone fly ; but I should say that within
these last twenty years I have observed a
general diminution of the spring and autum-
nal flies, except in those rivers which are fed
from sources that run from chalk, and which
are almost perennial — such as the Wandle,
and the Hampshire and Buckinghamshire
rivers; in these streams the temperature is
more uniform, and the quantity of water
does not vary much. I attribute the change
of the quantity of flies in the rivers to the
cultivation of the country. Most of the
bogs or marshes which fed many consider-
able streams are drained ; and the conse-
quence is that they are more likely to be
affected by severe droughts and great floods
— the first killing, and the second washing
away the larvae and aurelias. May flies
thirty years ago were abundant in the upper

64 SALMONIA.

part of the Teme river in Herefordshire,
where it receives the Clun: they are now
seldom or rarely seen. And most of the
rivers of that part of England, as well as of
the west, with the exception of those that
rise in the still uncultivated parts of Dart-
moor and Exmoor, are after rain rapid and
unfordable torrents, and in dry summers
little more than scanty rills. And Exmoor
and Dartmoor, almost the only great remains
of those moist, spongy or peaty soils which
once covered the greatest part of the high
lands of England, are becoming cultivated,
and their sources will gradually gain the
same character as those of our midland and
highly improved counties. I cannot give
you an idea of the effects of peat mosses and
grassy marshes on the water thrown down
from the atmosphere, better, than by com-
paring their effects to those of roofs of
houses of thatched straw, as contrasted with
roofs of slate, on a shower of rain. The slate
begins to drop immediately, and sends down
what it receives in a rapid torrent, and is dry
soon after the shower is over. The roof of

GILLAROO.

65

thatch, on the contrary, sponge like, is long-
before the water drops from it; but it con-
tinues dropping and wet for hours after the
shower is over and the slate is dry.

Poiet. — You spoke just now of the gilla-
roo trout, as belonging only to Ireland. I

GILLAROO — LOCH MELVIN.

can, however, hardly bring myself to believe
that such a fish must not be found else-
where. For lakes with shell fish and char are
common in various parts of Europe, and as
the gillaroo trout is congenerous, it ought to
be found both in Scotland and the Alpine
countries.

66 SALMONIA.

Hal. — It is not possible from analogies
of this kind to draw certain inferences.
Subterraneous cavities and subterranean
waters are common in various countries, yet
the Proteus Anguinus is only found in two
places in Carniola — at Adelsburg and Sittich.
As I mentioned before, I have never yet
found a gillaroo trout except in Ireland. It
is true, it is only lately that I have had my
attention directed to the subject, and other
fishermen or naturalists may be more for-
tunate.

Poiet. — Have you ever observed any
other varieties of the trout kind, which may
be considered as, like the gillaroo, forming a
distinct species?

Hal. — I think the par, samlet, or brand-
ling, common to most of our rivers which
communicate with the sea, has a claim to be
considered a distinct species ; yet the history
of this fish is so obscure, and so little under-
stood, that I perhaps ought not to venture
to give an account of it. But in doing so,
you will consider me as rather asking for

VARIETIES OF TROUT.

new information, than as attempting a satis-
factory view of this little animal.

PAR, OR SAMLET.

"h r

' fU Zoj

— ^r^e^g,vj,j. .... • * -rv, v-. -\ . ?r" • >

Orn. — I have seen this fish in the rivers
of Wales and Herefordshire, and have heard
it asserted, on what appeared to me good
authority, that it was a mule, — the offspring
of a trout and a salmon.

Hal. — This opinion, I know, has been
supported by the fact, that it is found only
in streams which are occasionally visited by
salmon; yet I know no direct evidence in
favour of the opinion, and I should think it
much more probable, if it is a mixed race,

f 2

68 SALMONIA.

that it is produced by the sea trout and
common trout. In a small river which runs
into the May, near Ballina in Ireland, I
once caught in October a great number of
small sea trout, which were generally of
half a pound in weight, and which were all
males; and unless it be supposed that the
females were in the river likewise, and would
not take the fly, these fish, in which the
spermatic system was fully developed, could
only have impregnated the ova of the com-
mon river trout. The sea trout and river
trout are, indeed, so like each other in
character, that such a mixture seems ex-
ceedingly probable; but I know no reason
why such mules should always continue small,
except that it may be a mark of imperfec-
tion. The only difference between the par
and common small trout, is in the colours,
and in its possessing one or two spines more
in the pectoral fin. The par has large blue
or olive bluish marks on the sides, as if they
had been made by the impression of the
fingers of a hand ; and hence the fish is
called in some places fingerling. The river

PAR OR SAMLET.

69

and sea trout seem capable of changing per-
manently their places of residence ; and
sea trout seem often to become river trout.
In this case they lose their silvery colour,
and gain more spots ; and in their offspring
these changes are more distinct. Fish, like-
wise, which are ill-fed remain small ; and
pars are exceedingly numerous in those
rivers where they are found, which are
never separated from the sea by impassable
falls; from which I think it possible that
they are produced by a cross between sea
and river trout. The varieties of the com-
mon trout are almost infinite ; from the

GREAT LAKE TROJJT.

70 SALMONIA.

great lake trout, which weighs above 60 or
70 lbs., to the trouts of the little mountain
brook or small mountain lake, or tarn, which
is scarcely larger than the finger. And the
smallest trout spawns nearly at the same time
with the larger ones, and their ova are of
the same size ; but in the large trout there
are tens of thousands, and in the small one
rarely as many as forty, — often from ten to
forty. So that in the physical constitution
of these animals, their production is dimi-
nished as their food is small in quantity;
and it is remarkable that the ova of the
large and beautiful species which exist in
certain lakes, and which seem always to
associate together, appear to produce off-
spring which, in colour, form, and power of
growth and reproduction, resemble the
parent fishes; and they generally choose
the same river for their spawning. Thus,
in the lake of Guarda, the Benacus of the
ancients, the magnificent trout, or Salmo
Jario, which in colour and appearance is
like a fresh run salmon, spawns in the river
at Riva, beginning to run up for that pur-

VARIETIES OF TROUT. 71

pose in June, and continuing to do so all
the summer; and this river is fed by streams
from snow and glaciers in the Tyrol, and
is generally foul: whilst the small spotted
common trouts, which are likewise found in
this lake, go into the small brooks which
have their sources not far off, and in which
they were probably originally bred. And
I have seen taken in the same net small
fish of both these varieties, which were as
marked as possible in their characters: —
one silvery, like a young salmon, blue on
the back and with small black spots only ;
the other, with yellow belly and red spots,
and an olive-coloured back. I have made
similar observations in other lakes, parti-
cularly in that of the Traun near Gmunden,
and likewise at Loch Neah in Ireland. In-
deed, considering the sea trout as the type
of the species trout, it is, I think, probable
that all the other true trouts may be con-
sidered as varieties, where the differences
of food and of habits have occasioned, in a
long course of ages, differences of shape and
colours, transmitted to offspring in the same

72 • SALMONIA.

manner as in the variety of dogs, which may
all be referred to one primitive type.*

* I have known the number of spines in the pectoral
fins different, in different varieties of trout; I have
seen them 12, 13, and 14 : but the anal fin always (I
believe) contains 10 or 11 spines. The smallest brook
trout, when well and copiously fed, will increase in
stews to four or five pounds in weight, but never at-
tains the size or characters of lake trout.

Mr. Tomkin of Polgaron put some small river trout,
2| inches in length, into a newly made pond. He
took some of them out the second year, above 12
inches in length; the third year, he took one out of
16 inches in length; and the fourth year, one of 25
inches in length: this was in 1734. (Carezcs Survey
of Cornwall, p. 87.)

( T3 )

THIRD DAY.

HALIEUS — PoiETES — OrNITHER —

Physicus.

SCENE— DENHAM.

Morning,

Hal. — You will soon take your leave, gen-
tlemen, of this agreeable villa, but we must
catch at least two brace of trout, to carry
with us to London as a present for two
worthy patrons of the angle. The May fly
is already upon the water, though not in
great quantity, and it will consequently be
more easy to catch the fish, which I see are
rising with great activity. I advise you to
go to the deep water below, where you will
find large fish, and I will soon follow you.

Poiet. — I hope I shall catch a large fish,
— a companion to that which you took yes-
terday with a natural fly.

74 SALMONIA.

[Halieus leaves them fishing, and returns
to the House; but soon comes back and
joins his companions, whom he finds fishing
below in the river. ~\

Hal. — Well, gentlemen, what sport?

Poiet. — The fish are rising everywhere;
but though we have been throwing over
them with all our skill for a quarter of an
hour, yet not a fish will take, and I am
afraid we shall return to breakfast without
our prey.

Hal. — I will try; but I shall go to the
other side, where I see a very large fish
rising. There ! — I have him at the very
first throw. Land this fish, and put him
into the well. Now I have another fish;
and I have no doubt I could take half a
dozen in this very place, where you have
been so long fishing without success.

Phys. — You must have a different fly;
or have you some unguent or charm to
tempt the fish ?

Hal. — No such thing. If any of you
will give me your rod and fly, I will an-

SHADOWS. 75

swer for it I shall have the same success. I
take your rod, Physicus. — And lo! I have a
fish !

Phys. — What can be the reason of this?
It is perfectly inexplicable to me. Yet
Poietes seems to throw as light as you do,
and as well as he did yesterday.

Hal. — I am surprised that you, who are
a philosopher, cannot discover the reason
of this. Think a little.

All. — We cannot.

Hal. — As you are my scholars, I believe
I must teach you. The sun is bright, and
you have been, naturally enough, fishing
with your backs to the sun, which, not being
very high, has thrown the shadows of your
rods and yourselves upon the water, and you
have alarmed the fish whenever you have
thrown a fly. You see I have fished with
my face towards the sun, and though incon-
venienced by the light, have not alarmed
the fish. Follow my example, and you will
soon have sport, as there is a breeze playing
on the water.

Phys. — Your sagacity puts me in mind

76 SALMONIA.

of an anecdote which I remember to have
heard respecting the late eloquent statesman,
Charles James Fox; who, walking up Bond
Street from one of the club houses with an
illustrious personage, laid him a wager that
he would see more cats than the Prince in
his walk, and that he might take which side
of the street he liked. When they got to
the top, it was found that Mr. Fox had seen
thirteen cats, and the Prince not one. The
royal personage asked for an explanation of
this apparent miracle ; Mr. Fox said, " Your
Royal Highness took, of course, the shady
side of the way, as most agreeable; I knew
that the sunny side would be left to me, and
cats always prefer the sunshine."

Hal. — There! Poietes; by following my
advice you have immediately hooked a fish ;
and while you are catching a brace, I will
tell you an anecdote, which is as much re-
lated to fly fishing as that of Physicus, and
which affords an elucidation of a particular
effect of light.

A manufacturer of carmine, who was
aware of the superiority of the French

SUNSHINE. 77

colour, went to Lyons for the purpose of
improving his process, and bargained with
the most celebrated manufacturer in that
capital for the acquisition of his secret, for
which he was to pay a thousand pounds.
He was shown all the processes, and saw a
beautiful colour produced, and he found not
the least difference in the French mode of
fabrication and that which he had con-
stantly adopted. He appealed to the manu-
facturer, and insisted that he must have
concealed something. The manufacturer
assured him that he had not, and invited
him to see the process a second time. He
minutely examined the water and the mate-
rials, which were the same as his own, and
very much surprised, said, " I have lost my
labour and my money, for the air of England
does not permit us to make good carmine."
" Stay," says the Frenchman, " do not de-
ceive yourself: what kind of weather is it
now?" " A bright sunny day," said the
Englishman. " And such are the days,"
said the Frenchman, " on which I make my

78 SALMONIA.

colour. Were I to attempt to manufacture
it on a dark or cloudy day, my result would
be the same as yours. Let me advise you,
my friend, always to make carmine on bright
and sunny days." " I will," says the English-
man ; " but I fear I shall make very little in
London."

Poiet. — Your anecdote is as much to
the purpose as Physicus's ; yet I am much
obliged to you for the hint respecting the
effect of shadow, for I have several times in
May and June had to complain of too clear
a sky, and wished, with Cotton, for

A day with not too bright a beam ;
A warm, but not a scorching, sun.

Hal. — Whilst we have been conversing,
the May flies, which were in such quantities,
have become much fewer; and I believe the
reason is, that they have been greatly dimi-
nished by the flocks of swallows which every
where pursue them: I have seen a single
swallow take four, in less than a quarter
of a minute, that were descending to the
water.

THE SWALLOWS. 79

Poiet. — I delight iii this living landscape!
The swallow is one of my favourite birds,
and a rival of the nightingale ; for he glads
my sense of seeing as much as the other
does my sense of hearing. He is the joyous
prophet of the year — the harbinger of the
best season : he lives a life of enjoyment
amongst the loveliest forms of nature : win-
ter is unknown to him; and he leaves the
green meadows of England in autumn, for
the myrtle and orange groves of Italy, and
for the palms of Africa: — he has always
objects of pursuit, and his success is secure.
Even the beings selected for his prey are
poetical, beautiful, and transient. The
ephemerae are saved by his means from a
slow and lingering death in the evening, and
killed in a moment, when they have known
nothing of life but pleasure. He is the
constant destroyer of insects, — the friend of
man ; and with the stork and the ibis, may
be regarded as a sacred bird. His in-
stinct, which gives him his appointed sea-
sons, and which teaches him always when

80 SALMONIA.

and where to move, may be regarded as
flowing from a Divine Source ; and he be-
longs to the Oracles of Nature, which speak
the awful and intelligible language of a pre-
sent Deity.

( 81 )

FOURTH DAY.

HaLIEUS — POIETES — OrNITHER —

Physicus.

FISHING FOR SALMON AND SEA TROUT.

Scene — Loch Maree, West of Roph'm, Scotland.
Time — Middle of July.

Poiet. — I begin to be tired. This is really
a long day's journey ; and these last ten
miles through bogs, with no other view than
that of mountains half hid in mists, and
brown waters that can hardly be called
lakes ; and with no other trees than a few
stunted birches, that look so little alive that
they might be supposed immediately de-
scended from the bog-wood, every where
scattered beneath our feet. This is the
most barren part of one of the most desolate
countries I have ever passed through in
Europe ; and though the inn at Strathgarve

G

82 SALMONIA.

is tolerable, that of Auchnasheen is certainly
the worst I have ever seen, — and I hope the
worst I shall ever see. We ought to have
good amusement at Pool Ewe, to compen-
sate us for this uncomfortable day's journey.

Hal. — I trust we shall have sport, as far
as salmon and sea trout can furnish sport.
But the difficulties of our journey are almost
over. See, Loch Maree is stretched at our
feet, and a good boat with four oars will
carry us in four or five hours to our fishing
ground : and that time will not be mispent,
for this lake is not devoid of beautiful, and
even grand scenery.

Poiet. — The scenery begins to improve ;
and that cloud-breasted mountain on the
left is of the best character of Scotch moun-
tains : these woods, likewise, are respectable
for this northern country. I think I see
islands, also, in the distance : and the quan-
tity of cloud always gives effect to this kind
of view; and perhaps, without such assist-
ance to the imagination, there would be
nothing even approaching to the sublime in
these countries ; but cloud and mist, by

SCENERY. 83

creating obscurity and offering a substitute
for greatness and distance, give something
of an Alpine and majestic character to this
region.

Orn. — As we are now fixed in our places
in the boat, you will surely put out a rod or
two with a set of flies, or try the tail of the
par for a large trout or salmon : our fishing
will not hinder our progress.

Hal. — In most other lakes I should do
so ; here I have often tried the experiment,
but never with success. This lake is ex-
tremely deep, and there are very few fish
which haunt it generally except char ; and
salmon seldom rest but in particular parts
along the shore, which we shall not touch.
Our voyage will be a picturesque, rather
than an angling one. I see we shall have
little occasion for the oars, for a strong-
breeze is rising, and blowing directly down
the lake ; we shall be in it in a minute.
Hoist the sails! On we go! — we shall
make our voyage in half the number of
hours I had calculated upon ; and I hope to
catch a salmon in time for dinner.

g2

84 SALMONIA.

Poiet. — The scenery improves as we ad-
vance nearer the lower parts of the lake.
The mountains become higher, and that
small island or peninsula presents a bold
craggy outline ; and the birch wood below
it, and the pines above, make a scene some-
what Alpine in character. But what is that
large bird soaring above the pointed rock,
towards the end of the lake? Surely it
is an eagle!

Hal. — You are right, it is an eagle, and
of a rare and peculiar species — the grey or
silver eagle, a noble bird ! From the size
of the animal, it must be the female; and
her aery is in that high rock. I dare say
the male is not far off.

Phys. — I think I see another bird, of a
smaller size, perched on the rock below,
which is similar in form.

Hal. — You do : it is the consort of that
beautiful and powerful bird ; and I have no
doubt their young ones are not far off.

Poiet. — Look at the bird ! She dashes
into the water falling like a rock, and raising
a column of spray; she has fallen from a

EAGLES. 85

great height. And now she rises again into
the air; what an extraordinary sight!

Hal. — She is pursuing her prey, and is
one of our fraternity, — a catcher of fish.
She has missed her quarry this time, and
has moved further down towards the river,
and falls again from a great height. There !
You see her rise with a fish in her talons.

Poiet. — She gives an interest which I
hardly expected to have found to this scene.
Pray are there many of these animals in this
country ?

Hal. — Of this species, I have seen but
these two, and I believe the young ones mi-
grate as soon as they can provide for them-
selves; for this solitary bird requires a large
space to move and feed in, and does not
allow its offspring to partake its reign, or to
live near it. Of other species of the eagle,
there are some in different parts of the
mountains, particularly of the Osprey; and
of the great fishing or brown eagle ; and I
once saw a very fine and interesting sight
in one of the Crags of Ben Weevis, near
Strathgarve, as I was going, on the 20th of

86 SALMONIA.

August, in pursuit of black game. Two
parent eagles were teaching their offspring
— two young birds, the manoeuvres of flight.
They began by rising from the top of a
mountain in the eye of the sun, (it was
about mid-clay, and bright for this climate).
They at first made small circles, and the
young birds imitated them; they paused on
their wings, waiting till they had made their
first flight, and then took a second and larger
gyration, — always rising towards the sun,
and enlarging their circle of flight so as to
make a gradually extending spiral. The
young ones still slowly followed, apparently
flying better as they mounted; and they
continued this sublime kind of exercise, al-
ways rising till they became mere points in
the air, and the young ones were lost, and
afterwards their parents, to our aching sight.
But we have touched the shore, and the
lake has terminated: you are now on the
river Ewe.

Poiet. — Are we to fish here? It is a
broad clear stream, but I see no fish, and
cannot think it a good angling river.

THE INN.

87

Hal. — We are nearly a mile above our
fishing station, and we must first see our
quarters and provide for our lodging, before
we begin our fishing: we must walk a little
way before we find the inn.

Poiet. — Why this inn is a second edition
of Auchnasheen.

Hal. — The interior is better than the
exterior, thanks to the Laird of Brahan:
we shall find one tolerable room and bed;
and we must put up our cots and provide
our food. What is our store, Mr. Purveyor?

Phys.— I know we have good bread, tea,
and sugar. Then there is the quarter of
roebuck we got at Gordon Castle ; and Or-
nither has furnished us with a brace of wild
ducks, three leash of snipes, and a brace of
golden plovers, by his mountain expedition
of yesterday; and for fish we depend on
you. Yet our host says there are fresh
herrings to be had, and small cod-fish, and
salmon and trout in any quantity, and the
claret and the Ferintosh are safe.

Hal. — Why we shall fare sumptuously.
As it is not time yet for shooting grouse, we

88 SALMONIA.

must divide our spoil for the few days we
shall stay here. Yet there are young snipes
and plovers on the mountains above, and I
have no doubt we might obtain the Laird's
permission to kill a roebuck in the woods or
a hart in the mountains; but this is always
an uncertain event, and I advise you Orni-
ther to become a fisherman.

Orn. — I shall wait till I see the results of
your skill. At all events, in this country I
can never want amusement, and I dare say
there are plenty of seals at the mouth of the
river, and killing them is more useful to
other fishermen, than catching fish.

Hal. — Let there be a kettle of water with
salt ready boiling in an hour, mine host,
for the fish we catch or buy ; and see that
the potatoes are well dressed: the servants
will look to the rest of our fare. Now for
our rods.

Poiet. — This is a fine river; clear, full,
but not too large : with the two handed rod
it may be commanded in most parts.

Hal. — It is larger than usual. The
strong wind which brought us so quickly

THE EWE. 89

down has raised it; and it is not in such
good order for fishing as it was before the
wind rose.

Poiet. — I thought the river was always
the better for a flood, when clear.

Hal. — Better after a flood from rain; for
this brings the fish up, who know when rain
is coming, and likewise brings down food
and makes the fish feed. But when the
water is raised by a strong wind the fish
never run, as they are sure to find no in-
crease in the spring heads, which are their
objects in running.

Poiet. — You give the fish credit for great
sagacity.

Hal. — Call it instinct rather; for if they
reasoned, they would run with every large
water, whether from wind or rain. What
the feeling or power is which makes them
travel with rain, I will not pretend to define.
But now for our sport.

Poiet. — The fish are beginning to rise;
I have seen two here already, and there is a
third, and a fourth — scarcely a quarter of a
minute elapses without a fish rising in some
parts of the pool.

90 SALMON! v.

HAL. — As fche day is dark, 1 shall use a

bright and rather a large fly, with jay's
hackle, kingfisher's feather under the wing,

and golden pheasants tail, and WUlg of
mixed grOUSC mid argUfl pheasant s tail. I
shall throw over these fish: I OUghl to raise
one.

Poiet. — Either you are not skilful, or the

fish know their danger: they will not rise.
HAL. — I will try another and a smaller fly.

PofET. — You do nothing.

Hal. — -I have changed my fly a third
time, yet no fish rises. I cannot understand
this. The water is not in good order; but I
should certainly have raised a tisli or two.
Now I will wager tin to one that this pool

has been fished before to-day.
Ok \. By whom?

HAL. — I know not; but take my wa^er
and we will ascertain.

ORN. —1 shall ascertain without the wager
if possible. See, a man Connected with the

fishing advances, let us ask him. -There

you see; it has been fished once or twice by
one, who claims without charter the light
of angling.

SEA TROUT.

91

Hal. — I told you so. Now I know this,
I shall put on another kind of fly, such as I
am sure they have not seen this day.

Poiet. — It is very small and very gaudy,
I believe made with humming bird's feathers.

Hal. — No. The brightest Java dove's
hackle ; kingfisher's, blue and golden phea-
sant's feathers, and the red feathers of the
paroquet. There was a fish that rose and
missed the fly — a sea trout. There, he has
taken it, a fresh run fish, from his white
belly and blue back.

Poiet. — How he springs out of the
water! He must be 6 or 7 lbs.

Hal. — Under five, I am sure ; he will
soon be tired. He fights with less spirit:
put the net under him. There, he is a fine
fed sea trout, between 4 and 5 lbs. But our
intrusive brother angler (as I must call him,)
is coming down the river to take his evening
cast. A stout Highlander, with a powerful
tail,— or, as we should call it in England,
suite. He is resolved not to be driven off,
and I am not sure that the Laird himself
could divert him from his purpose, except

92 SALMONIA.

by a stronger tail, and force of arms ; but I
will try my eloquence upon him. " Sir, we
hope you will excuse us for fishing in this
pool, where it seems you were going to take
your cast; but the Laird has desired us to
stand in his shoes for a few days, and has
given up angling while we are here; and as
we come nearly a thousand miles for this
amusement, we are sure you are too much
of a gentleman to spoil our sport; and we
will take care to supply your fish kettle
while we are here morning and evening, and
we shall send you, as we hope, a salmon
before night."

Poiet. — He grumbles good sport to us,
and is off with his tail: you have hit him
in the right place. He is I am sure a pot
fisher, and somewhat hungry, and provided
he gets the salmon does not care who
catches him!

Hal. — You are severe on the Highland
gentleman, and I think extremely unjust.
Nothing could be more ready than his as-
sent, and a keen fisherman must not be
expected to be in the best possible humour

SALMON. 93

when he finds sport which he believes he
has a right to, and which perhaps he gene-
rally enjoys without interruption, taken away
from him by entire strangers. There is, I
know, a disputed point about fishing with
the rod, between him and the Laird; and it
would have been too much to have antici-
pated a courteous greeting from one who
considers us as the representatives of an
enemy. But I see there is a large fish
which has just risen at the tail of the pool.
I think he is fresh run from the sea, for the
tide is coming in. My fly and tackle are
almost too fine for so large a fish, and I will
put on my first fly with a very strong single
gut link and a stretcher of triple gut. He
has taken my fly, and I hold him — a powerful
fish : he must be between 10 and 15 lbs.
He fights well and tries to get up the rapid
at the top of the pool. I must try my
strength with him to keep him off that rock,
or he will break me. I have turned him,
and he is now in a good part of the pool:
such a fish cannot be tired in a minute, but
requires from ten to twenty times as long,

94 SALMONIA.

depending upon his activity .and strength,
and the rapidity of the stream he moves
against. He is now playing against the
strongest rapid in the river and will soon
give in if he keeps his present place.

Poiet. — You have tired him.

Hal. — He seems fairly tired : I shall
bring him in to shore. Now gaff him;
strike as near the tail as you can. He is
safe ; we must prepare him for the pot.
Give him a stunning blow on the head to
deprive him of sensation, and then give him
a transverse cut just below the gills, and
crimp him by cutting to the bone on each
side, so as almost to divide him into slices;
and now hold him by the tail that he may
bleed. There is a small spring, I see, close
under that bank, which I dare say has the
mean temperature of the atmosphere in this
climate, and is much under 50° — place him
there, and let him remain for ten minutes,
and then carry him to the pot, and let the
water and salt boil furiously before you put
in a slice, and give time to the water to re-
cover its heat before you throw in another,

CR IMPING.

95

and so with the whole fish, and leave the
head out and throw in the thickest pieces
first.

Phys. — Why did you not crimp your
trout ?

Hal. — We will have that fried. Our
poacher prevented me from attending to the
preparation of that fish ; but for frying he is
better not crimped, as he is not large enough
to give good transverse slices.

Poiet. — This salmon is a good fish, and
fresh as you said from the sea. You see
the salt-water louse adheres to his sides, and
he is bright and silvery and a thick fish : I
dare say his weight is not less than 141bs.
and I know of no better fish for the table
than one of that size.

Hal. — Now we have caught fish for our
dinner, my task is finished : Physicus and
Poietes, try your skill. I have not fished
over the best parts of this pool: you may
catch a brace of fish here before dinner is
ready.

Phys. — It is too late, and I shall go and
see that all is right.

96 SALMONIA.

Poiet. — I will take one or two casts; but
give me your fly : I like always to be sure
that the tackle is taking.

Hal. — Try at first the very top of the
pool, — though I fear you will get nothing
there ; but here is a cast which I think the
Highlander can hardly have commanded
from the other side, and which is rarely
without a good fish. There, he rose : a large
trout of 10 lbs. or a salmon. Now wait a
few minutes. When a fish has missed the
fly, he will not rise again till after a pause —
particularly if he has been for some time in
the fresh water. Now try him again. He
has risen, but he is a dark fish that has
been some time in the water, and he tries to
drown the fly with a blow of his tail. I fear
you will not hook him except foul, when
most likely he would break you. Try the
bottom of the pool, below where I caught
my fish.

Poiet. — I have tried all the casts and
nothing rises.

Hal. — Come we will change the fly for
that with which I caught my trout.

SEA TROUT. 97

Poiet. — Now I have one: he has taken
the fly under water, and I cannot see him.

Hal. — Straighten your line and we shall
soon see him. He is a sea trout, but not a
large one.

Poiet. — But he fights like a salmon, and
must be near 5 lbs.

Hal. — Under 3 lbs.; but these fish are
always strong and active, and sometimes
give more sport than larger fish. Shorten
your line or he will carry you over the stones
and cut the link gut. He is there already:
you have allowed him to carry out too much
line, wind up as quick as you can, and keep
a tight hand upon him. He is now back in
a good place, and in a few minutes more will
be spent. I have the net. There, he is a
sea trout of nearly 3 lbs. This will be a
good addition to our dinner: I will crimp
him, that you may compare boiled sea trout
with broiled, and with salmon. Now, if you
please we will cool this fish at the spring,
and then go to our inn.

Poiet. — If you like. I am endeavouring
to find a reason for the effect of crimping

H

98 SALMONIA.

and cold in preserving the curd of fish.
Have you ever thought on this subject?

Hal. — Yes: I conclude that the fat of
salmon between the flakes, is mixed with
much albumen and gelatine, and is extremely
liable to decompose, and by keeping it cool
the decomposition is retarded, and by the
boiling salt and water, which is of a higher
temperature than that of common boiling
water, the albumen is coagulated, and the
curdiness preserved. The crimping, by
preventing the irritability of the fibre from
being gradually exhausted, seems to pre-
serve it so hard and crisp, that it breaks un-
der the teeth ; and a fresh fish not crimped
is generally tough. A friend of mine, an
excellent angler, has made some experi-
ments on the fat of fish; and he considers
the red colour of trout, salmon, and char, as
owing to a peculiar coloured oil, which may
be extracted by alcohol; and this accounts
for the want of it in fish that have fed ill,
and after spawning. In general, the depth
of the red colour, and the quantity of curd
are proportional.

CRIMPING. 99

Poiet.— Would not the fisli be still bet-
ter, or at least possess more curd, if caught
in a net and killed immediately? In the
operation of tiring by the reel there must be
considerable muscular exertion, and I should
suppose expenditure of oily matter.

Hal. — There can be no doubt but the
fish would be in a more perfect state for the
table from the nets ; yet a fish in high sea-
son does not lose so much fat during the
short time he is on the hook as to make
much difference ; and I am not sure that the
action of crimping after does not give a
better sort of crispness to the fibre: this,
however, may be fancy ; we will discuss the
matter again at table. See ! our companion
on the lake, the eagle, is coming down the
river, and has pounced upon a fish in the
pool near the river.

Phys. — I fear he will interfere with our
sport: let us request Ornither to shoot him.
I wish to see him nearer and to preserve
him as a specimen for the Zoological Society.

Hal. — O ! no. He will not spoil our
sport; and I think it would be a pity to

h2

100 SALMONIA.

deprive this spot of one of its poetical orna-
ments. Besides, the pool where he is now
fishing contains little but trouts; it is too
shallow for salmon, who run into the cruives.

Poiet. — I am of your opinion; and shall
use my eloquence to prevent Ornither from
attempting the life of so beautiful a bird ; so
majestic in its form, so well suited to the
scenery, and so picturesque in all its habits.

The Innkeeper. — Gentlemen, dinner is
ready.

THE DINNER.

Hal. — Now take your places. What
think you of our fish?

Phys. — I never ate better; but I want
the Harvey or Reading sauce.

Hal. — Pray let me entreat you to use no
other sauce than the water in which he was
boiled. I assure you this is the true Epi-
curean way of eating fresh salmon: and for
the trout, use only a little vinegar and mus-
tard,— a sauce a la Tartar e> without the
onions.

Poiet. — Well, nothing can be better; and

THE DINNER. 101

I do not think fresh net-caught fish can be
superior to these.

Hal. — And these snipes are excellent.
Either my journey has given me an appetite,
or I think they are the best I ever tasted.

Orn. — They are good, but I have tasted
better.

Hal.— Where?

Orn. — On the continent; where the com-
mon snipe, that rests during its migration
from the north to the south in the marshes
of Italy and Carniola, and the double or
solitary snipe, become so fat as to resemble
that bird which was formerly fattened in
Lincolnshire, the ruff; and they have, I
think, a better flavour from being fed on
their natural food.

Hal. — At what time have you eaten
them?

Orn. — I have eaten them both in spring
and autumn; but the autumnal birds are the
best, and are like the ortolan of Italy.

Hal. — Where does the double snipe
winter?

Orn. — I believe in Africa and Asia minor.
They are rarely seen in England, except

102 SALMON I A.

driven by an east wind in the spring, or a
strong north wind in the autumn. Their
natural progress is to and from Finland and
Siberia, through the continent of Europe to
and from the east and south.* In autumn
they pass more east, both because they are
aided by west winds, and because the
marshes in the east of Europe are wetter in
that season; and in spring they return, but
a larger proportion through Italy, where
they are carried by the Sirocco, and which
at that time is extremely wet. Come, let us
have another bottle of claret: a pint per
man is not too much after such a day's
fatigue.

Hal. — You have made me president for
these four days, and I forbid it. A half

* From the food, or rather I should say the remains
of food, found in the stomach of the double snipe, I
think it is probable that it requires a kind of worm,
which is not found in winter even in the temperate
climes of Europe; and that it feeds differently from
the snipe. There are certainly none found after the
middle of October, in either lllyria or Italy; and I
believe the same may be said of the middle of May, as
to their summer migration, or their breeding migration.

THE DINNER.

103

pint of wine for young men in perfect health
is enough, and you will be able to take your
exercise better, and feel better for this absti-
nence. How few people calculate upon the
effects of constantly renewed fever in our
luxurious system of living in England ! The
heart is made to act too powerfully, the
blood is thrown upon the nobler parts, and
with the system of wading adopted by some
sportsmen, whether in shooting or fishing, is
delivered either to the hemorhoidal veins, or
what is worse, to the head. I have known
several free livers who have terminated their
lives by apoplexy, or have been rendered
miserable by palsy, in consequence of the
joint effects of cold feet and too stimulating a
diet ; that is to say as much animal food as
they could eat, with a pint or perhaps a bottle
of wine per day. Be guided by me, my
friends, and neither drink nor wade. I know
there are old men who have done both and
have enjoyed perfect health; but these are
devil's decoys to the unwary, and ten suffer
for one that escapes. I could quote to you
an instance from this very county, one of the

104 SALMONIA.

strongest men I have ever known. He was
not intemperate, but he lived luxuriously,
and waded as a salmon fisher for many years
in this very river; but before he was fifty,
palsy deprived him of the use of his limbs,
and he is still a living example of the danger
of the system which you are ambitious of
adopting.

Orn. — Well, I give up the wine, but I in-
tend to wade in Hancock's boots to morrow.

Hal. — Wear them, but do not wade in
them. The feet must become cold in a
stream of water constantly passing over the
caoutchouc and leather, notwithstanding the
thick stockings. They are good for keep-
ing the feet warm, and I think where there
is exercise, as in snipe shooting, may be
used without any bad effects. But I advise
no one to stand still (which an angler must
do sometimes) in the water, even with these
ingenious waterproof inventions. All anglers
should remember old Boerhaave's maxims
of health, and act upon them: " Keep the
feet warm, the head cool, and the body
open."

THE DINNER. 105

Phys. — I am sorry we did not examine
more minutely the weight and size of the fish
we caught, and compare the anatomy of the
salmon and the sea trout; but we were in
too great a hurry to see them on the table,
and our philosophy yielded to our hunger.

Hal. — We shall have plenty of opportu-
nities for this examination; and we can now
walk down to the fishing house and see
probably half a hundred fish of different
sizes, that have been taken in the cruives,
this evening, and examine them at our
leisure.

All. — Let us go!

Phys. — I never saw so many fish of this
kind before; and I conclude that heap of
smaller fish is composed of trout.

Hal. — Certainly. Let us compare one
of the largest trout with a salmon. I have
selected two fresh run fish, which, from their
curved lower jaws, are, I conclude, both
males. The salmon you see is rather
broader, has a tail rather more forked, and
the teeth in proportion are rather smaller.

106

SALMONIA.

SEA TROUT — SAI.MO EllIOX.

SALMON — SALMO SALAX.

The trout, likewise, has larger and more
black and brown spots on the body ; and the
head of the trout is rather larger in propor-
tion. The salmon has 14 spines in the pec-
toral fins, 10 in each of the ventral, 13 in
the anal, 21 in the caudal, and 15 in the

TROUT AND SALMON COMPARED. 107

dorsal. The salmon measures 38h inches in
length, and 21 inches in girth, and his weight
is 22% lbs. you see. The trout has one spine
less in the pectoral and two less in the anal
fin, and measures 30| inches in length, and
16 inches in girth, and his weight is 11 lbs.
We will now open them. The stomach of
the salmon, you see, contains nothing but a
little yellow fluid, and, though the salmon is
twice as large, does not exceed much in size
that of the trout. The stomach of the trout,
unlike that of the salmon, is full of food : we
will open it. See, there are half digested
sand eels which come out of it.

Phys. — But surely the stomachs of salmon
must sometimes when opened contain food?

Hal. — I have opened ten or twelve, and
never found anything in their stomachs but
tape worms, bred there, and some yellow
fluid ; but I believe this is generally owing
to their being caught at the time of migra-
tion, when they are travelling from the sea
upwards, and when they do not willingly
load themselves with food. Their digestion
seems to be very quick, and their habits

108 SALMONIA.

seem to show, that after having taken a bait
in the river they do not usually offer to take
another, till the work of digestion is nearly
performed; but when they are taken at sea,
and in rivers in the winter, food, I am told,
is sometimes found in their stomachs. The
sea trout is a much more voracious fish, and,
like the land trout, is not willingly found
with an empty stomach.

Phys. — I presume the sea trout is the fish
called by Linnaeus, in his Fauna, Salmo
Eriox ?

Hal. — I know not: but I should rather
think that fish a variety of the common
salmon.

Phys. — But there are surely other species
of salmon that live in the sea and come into
our rivers : I have heard of fish called greys,
bull trout, scurfs, morts, peales, and ivhit-
lings.

Hal. I have never been able to identify
more than the salmo salac, or salmon, and
salmo trutta, or sea trout, in the rivers of
Britain and Ireland. The whitlings, I be^
lieve to be the young of the sea trout. A

VARIETIES OF SALMON. 109

sea trout which I saw in Ireland, called a
bull trout, was of the same kind as these you
see here, but fresh water trout are sometimes
carried in floods to the sea, and come back
larger and altered in colour and form, and
are then mistaken for new species; and as
each river possesses a peculiar variety be-
longing to it, this, with differences depend-
ing upon food and size, will, I think, account
for the peculiarities of particular fish, without
the necessity of supposing them distinct
species. I remember many years ago, the
first time I ever fished for salmon in spring
in the Tweed, I caught with the fly, one fine
morning in March, two fish nearly of the
same length : one was a male fish of the last
season, that had lost its melt; the other a
female fresh from the sea. They were so
unlike, that they did not appear of the same
species : the spent or kipper salmon was long
and lean, showing an immense head, spotted
all over with black and brown spots, and the
belly almost black; the other bright and
silvery, without spots, and the head small.
Even the pectoral and anal fins had more

110 SALMONIA.

spines in the newly run fish, some of the
smaller ones having been probably rubbed
off in spawning by the other. I would not
for some time, till assured by an experienced
fisherman, believe that the spent fish was a
salmon ; and when their flesh was compared
•on the table, one was white, flabby, and bad,
and without curd ; the other of the brightest
pink, and full of dense curd. Then, though
of the same length, one weighed only 4 lbs.
the other 9 \ lbs. When it is recollected
that different salmon and sea trout spawn at
different times in the same river, and that
fish of the same year being born at different
seasons, from Christmas to Lady-day, — and
having migrated to the sea in spring — run
up the rivers of all sizes in summer and
autumn — the young salmon from 2 to 10 lbs.
in weight, the young sea trout from \ to 3 lbs.
in weight — it is not difficult to account for
the variety of names given by casual ob-
servers to individuals of these two species.

( 111 )

FIFTH DAY.

HALIEUS — PoiETES — ORNITHER-

Physicus.

MORNING.

Hal. — Well, is your tackle all ready? It
is a fine fresh and cloudy morning, with a
gentle breeze — a day made for salmon fish-
ing.

[They proceed to the river. ,]

Hal. — Now, my friends, I give up the
two best pools to you till one o'clock; and I
shall amuse myself above and below — pro-
bably with trout fishing. As there is a pro-
mise of a mixed day, with — what is rare in
this country — a good deal of sunshine, I
will examine your flies a little, and point out
those I think likely to be useful ; or rather,
I will show you my flies, and, as you all have

112 SALMONIA.

duplicates of them, you can each select the
fly which I point out, and place it in a part
of the book where it may easily be found.
First: when the cloud is on, I advise one of
these three golden twisted flies, silk bodies,
orange, red and pale blue, with red, orange,
and grey hackle, golden pheasant's hackle
for tail, and kingfisher's and golden phea-
sant's brown hackle under the wing ; begin-
ning with the brightest fly, and changing to
the darker one. Should the clouds disap-
pear, and it become bright, change your
flies for darker ones, of which I will point
out three: — a fly with a brown body and a
red cock's hackle, and one with a dun body
and black hackle, with a brown mallard's
wing. All these flies have, you see, silver
twist bodies, and all kingfisher's feather un-
der the wing, and golden pheasant's feather
for the tail. For the size of your flies, I
recommend the medium size, as the water
is small this day ; but trying all sizes, from
the butterfly size of a hook of half an inch in
width, to one of a quarter. Now, Physicus,
cast your orange fly into that rapid at the

SALMON FISHING. 113

top of the pool ; I saw a large fish run there
this moment. You fish well, were common
trout your object ; but, in salmon fishing,
you must alter your manner of moving the
fly. It must not float quietly down the
water; you must allow it to sink a little, and
then pull it back by a gentle jerk — not
raising it out of the water, — and then let it
sink again, till it has been shown in motion,
a little below the surface, in every part of
your cast. That is right, — he has risen.

Phys. — I hold him. He is a noble fish!

Hal. — He is a large grilse, I see by his
play ; or a young salmon, of the earliest born
this spring. Hold him tight ; he will fight
hard.

Phys. — There ! he springs out of the
water ! Once, twice, thrice, four times !
He is a merry one !

Hal. — He runs against the stream, and
will soon be tired, — but do not hurry him.
Pull hard now, to prevent him from running
round that stone. He comes in. I will
gaff him for you. I have him ! A goodly
fish of this tide. But see, Poietes has a

114 SALMONIA.

larger fish, at the bottom of the great pool,
and is carried down by him almost to the
sea.

Poiet. — I cannot hold him ! He has run
out all my line.

Hal. — I see him : he is hooked foul, and
I fear we shall never recover him, for he is
going out to sea. Give me the rod, — I will
try and turn him; and do you run down to
the entrance of the pool, and throw stones,
to make him, if possible, run back. Ay!
that stone has done good service; he is now
running up into the pool again. Now call
the fisherman, and tell him to bring a long
pole, to keep him if possible from the sea.
Now you have a good assistant, and I will
leave you, for tiring this fish will be at least
a work of two hours. He is not much less
than 20 lbs. and is hooked under the gills, so
that you cannot suffocate him by a straight
line. I wish you good fortune ; but should
he turn sulky, you must not allow him to
rest, but make the fisherman move him with
the pole again ; your chance of killing him
depends upon his being kept incessantly in

PRODUCE OF MORNING'S SPORT. 115

action, so that he may exhaust himself by
exercise. I shall go and catch you some
river trout, for your dinner; — but I am glad
to see, before I take my leave of you, that
Ornither has likewise hold of a fish, — and,
from his activity, a lusty sea trout.

[He goes, and returns in the afternoon.]

Hal. — Well, Poietes, I hope to see your
fish of 20 lbs.

Poiet. — Alas! he broke me, — turned
sulky, and went to the bottom; and when
he was roused again, my line came back
without the fly ; so that I conclude he had
cut my links by rubbing them against some
sharp stone. But, since, I have caught two
grilses and a sea trout, and lost two others,
salmons or grilses, that fairly got the hooks
out of their mouths.

Hal. — And, Ornither, what have you
done? Well, I see, — a salmon, a grilse,
and a sea trout. And Physicus?

Phys. — I have lost three fish; one of
which broke me, at the top of the pool, by

i2

116 ,SALMONIAs

running amonst the rocks ; and I have only
one small sea trout.

Hal. — Your fortune will come another
day. Why, you have not a single crimped
fish for dinner, and it is now nearly two
o'clock; and you have been catching for
the picklers, for those fish may all go to the
boiling house. I must again be your pur-
veyor. Can you point out to me any part of
this pool where you have not fished?

All. — No.

Hal. — Then I have little chance.

Phys. — O yes! you have a charm for
catching fish.

Hal. — Let me know what flies you have
tried, and I may perhaps tell you if I have
a chance. With my small bright humming
bird, as you call it, I will make an essay.

Poiet. — But this fishery is really very
limited; and two pools for four persons a
small allowance.

Hal. — If you could have seen this river
twenty years ago, when the cruives were a
mile higher up, then you might have enjoyed
fishing. There were eight or ten pools, of

SALMON RIVERS. — TAY AND TWEED. 117

the finest character possible for angling,
where a fisherman of my acquaintance has
hooked thirty fish in a morning. The river
was then perfect, and it might easily be
brought again into the same state ; but even
as it is now, with this single good pool and
this second tolerable one, I know no place
where I could, in the summer months, be so
secure of sport as here — certainly no where
in Great Britain.

Poiet. — I have often heard the Tay and
the Tweed vaunted as salmon rivers.

Hal. — They were good salmon rivers, and
are still very good, as far as the profit of the
proprietor is concerned; but, for angling,
they are very much deteriorated. The net
fishing, which is constantly going on except
on Sundays and in close time, suffers very
few fish to escape ; and a Sunday's flood
offers the sole chance of a good day's sport,
and this only in particular parts of these
rivers. I remember the Tweed and the
Tay in a far better state. The Tweed, in
the late Lord Somerville's time, always con-
tained taking-fish after every flood in the

118 SALMONIA.

summer : and, between Abbotsford and
Melrose, I have known six or seven iish
taken by a single rod in the morning. In
the Tay, only ten years ago, at Mickleure,
I was myself one of two anglers who took
eight fine fish, — three of them large salmon,
— in a short morning's fishing ; but now,
except in spring fishing, when the fish are
little worth taking, there is no certainty of
sport in these rivers ; and one, two, or three
fish (which last is of rare occurrence), are
all even an experienced angler can hope to
take in a day's skilful and constant angling.

Poiet. — You have fished in most of the
salmon rivers of the north of Europe, — give
us some idea of the kind of sport.

Hal. — I have fished in some, but perhaps
not in the best; for this it is necessary to go
into barbarous countries — Lapland, or the
extreme north of Norway ; and I have gene-
rally loved too much the comforts of life to
make any greater sacrifices than such as are
made in this expedition. I have heard the
river at Drontheim boasted of as an excel-
lent salmon river, — and I know two worthy

RIVERS OF NORWAY AND SWEDEN. 119

anglers who have tried it ; but I do not think
they took more fish in a day than I have
sometimes taken in Scotland and Ireland.
All the Norwegian rivers, that I tried, (and
they were all in the south of Norway,) con-
tained salmon. I fished in the Glommen,
one of the largest rivers in Europe; in the
Mandals, which appeared to me the best
fitted for taking salmon ; the Avendal and
the Torrisdale; — but, though I saw salmon
rise in all these rivers, I never took any fish
larger than a sea trout ; of these I always
took many — and even in the fiords, or small
inland salt-water bays; but I think never
any one more than a pound. It is true, I
was in Norway in the beginning of July,
and in exceedingly bright weather, and
when there was no night ; for even at twelve
o'clock the sky was so bright, that I read
the smallest print in the columns of a news-
paper. I was in Sweden later — in August:
I fished in the magnificent Gotha, below
that grand fall Trolhetta, which to see is
worth a voyage from England; but J never
raised there any fish worth taking: yet a

120 SALMONIA.

gentleman from Gothenburg told me he had
formerly taken large trout there. I took, in
this noble stream, a little trout about as long
as my hand ; and the only fish I got to eat
at Trolhetta was bream. The Falkenstein, a
darker water, very like a second-rate Scotch
river — say the Don — abounds in salmon;
and there I had a very good day's fishing.
I took six fish, which gave me great sport;
they were grilses, under 61bs.; but I lost a
salmon, which I think was above 10 lbs.
This river I conceive must be, generally,
excellent; it is not covered with saw-mills,
like the Norwegian rivers in general ; its
colour is good, and it is not so clear as most
of the rivers of the south of Norway.

Phys. — Do you think the saw-mills hurt
the fishing?

Hal. — I do not doubt it. The immense
quantity of sawdust which floats in the water,
and which forms almost hills along the banks,
must be poisonous to the fish, by sometimes
choaking their gills and interfering with
their respiration. I have never fished for
salmon in Germany. The Elbe and the

ENGLISH RIVERS. 121

Weser, when I have seen them, were too
foul for fly fishing; and in the Rhine, in
Switzerland, and its tributary streams, I have
never seen a salmon rise. I once hooked a
fish, under the fall at SehafFausen, which in
my youthful ardour I thought was a salmon,
but it turned out to be an immense chub — a
villanous and provoking substitute. And
our islands, as far as I know, may claim the
superiority over all other lands for this
species of amusement. In England it is,
however, a little difficult to get a day's
salmon fishing. The best river I know of
is the Derwent, that flows from the beautiful
Lake of Keswick ; and I caught once, in Oc-
tober, a very large salmon there, and raised
another; but it is only late in the autumn
that there is any chance of sport there,
though I have heard the spring salmon fish-
ing boasted of. At Whitwell, in the Had-
der, I have heard of salmon and sea trout
being taken — but I have never fished in that
river. The late Lord Bolinbroke caught
many salmon at Christchurch ; but a fish
a week is as much as can be expected in

}ft£ SALMONIA.

that beautiful) but scantily stocked, river.

Small salmon and sea trout, or scire its, as
they arc called in the country, may be
Caught, alter the autumnal Hoods, I believe,
in most of the considerable Welsh, Devon-
shire, and Cornish streams ; but I have
fished in many of them without success.
The Conway I may except: this river, in
the end of OctobeT) Will sometimes, after a
great Hood, furnish a good day's sport, — and
if the net lishers could be set aside, several
day's sport. 1 have known two salmon, one
above SOlbs., taken here in a day; and 1
have taken myself line sea tront, or scirc/is,
— which, in an autumnal flood in Wales, are
Pound in most of the streams near the sea.

1*011: r. -1 have heard a Northumberland
man boast of the rivers of that county, as

affording good salmon Ashing.

11 Ah. — 1 have no doubt that .salmon are
sometimes caught in the Tync, the Coquet,
and the Till; but, in the present state oi'
these rivers, this is a rare occurrence. 1
was onCO) for a week, on a good run of the
North Tync; 1 lished sometimes, but 1

SALMON RIVERS. 123

never saw a salmon rise ; and the only place
in this river where, from my own knowledge,
I can assert salmon have been caught with
the artificial fly, was at Mounsey, very high
up the river. There, in 1820, two grilses
were caught, in the end of August. I have
recorded this as a sort of historical occur-
rence; and I dare say most of the counties
of England in which there are salmon rivers,
would, upon a minute inquiry, furnish such
instances, if they contained salmon fishers.
Yorkshire, Devonshire, and Cornwall, with
the sea on both sides, ought to furnish a
greater number.

Phys. — Give us some little notice of the
Scotch and Irish rivers.

Hal. — I fear I shall tire you by attempt-
ing any details on this subject, for they are
so many, that I ought to take a map in my
hands; but I will say a few words on those
in which I have had good sport. First, the
Tweed: — of this, as you will understand
from what I mentioned before, I fear I must
now say "fait" Yet still, for spring salmon
fishing, it must be a good river. The last

124 SALMONIA.

great sport I had in that river was in 1817,
in the beginning of April. I caught, in two
or three hours, at Merton, above four or
five large salmon, and as many in the evening
at Kelso — and one of them 25 lbs. But this
kind of fishing cannot be compared to the
summer fishing : the fish play with much
less energy, and in general are in bad season ;
and the fly used for fishing is almost like a
bird — four or five times larger than the
summer fly, and the coarsest tackle may be
employed. I have heard that Lord Home
has sometimes taken thirty fish in a day, in
spring fishing. About, and above, Melrose,
I have taken, in a morning in July, two or
three grilses ; and in September the same
number : and I have known eighteen taken
earlier, by an excellent salmon fisher, at
Merton; and the late Lord Somerville often
took six or seven fish in a day's angling.
The same, " fuit" I must apply to most of
the Scotch rivers. Of the Tay I have
already spoken. The Dee I have never
caught salmon in, though I have fished in
two parts of it, but in bad seasons. In the

SCOTCH RIVERS. — TWEED. 125

Don I have seen salmon rise, and hooked
one, but never killed a fish. In the Spey I
enjoyed one of the best day's sport (perhaps
the very best) I ever had in my life : it was
in the beginning of September, in close time ;
the water was low, and as net fishing had
been given over for some days, the lower
parts were full of fish. By a privilege, which
I owe to the late Duke of Gordon, I fished
at this forbidden time, and hooked twelve
or thirteen fish in one day. One was above
oOlbs. who broke me by the derangement
of my reel. I landed seven or eight, — one
above 20 lbs. which gave me great play in
the rapids above the bridge. I returned to
the same spot in 1813, the year after ; the river
was in excellent order, and it was the same
time of the year, but just after a flood, — I
caught nothing ; the fish had all run up the
river ; the pools, where I had had such sport
the year before, were empty. I have fished
there since, with a like result, — but this was
before the 12th of August, the close day.
In the Sutherland and Caithness rivers,
many salmon, I have no doubt, may still be

[gfij SALMONIA.

caught. The Brora, in 1813 and 1814, was
an admirable river; I have often rode from
the mansion of the princely and hospitable
lord and lady of that county, after breakfast,
and returned at two or three o'clock, having
taken from three to eight salmon — several
times eight. There were five pools below
the wears of the Brora, which always con-
tained fish ; and one pool, which from its
size was almost inexhaustible, at the top of
which I have taken three or four salmon the
same day. Another pool, nearer the sea,
was almost equal to it; and at that time I
should have placed the Brora above the
Ewe for certainty of sport. When I fished
there last, in 1817, the case was altered,
and I caught only two or three fish in those
places where I had six years before been so
successful. In the Helmsdale there are
some good pools, and I have caught fine
fish there when the river has been high. I
have fished in the river at Thurso, but with-
out success— it was always foul when I made
my essay. I have heard of a good salmon
river in Lord Reay's country, the Laxford;

IRISH RIVERS. 127

its name, of Norwegian origin, would seem
to be characteristic.* Along the coast of
Scotland, most of the streams, if taken at
the right time, afford sport. The Ness, at
Inverness, and the Arne and Lochy, I have
fished in, but without success. I may say
the same of the Ayr, and of the rivers which
empty themselves into the Solway Frith. A
little preserved stream, at Ardgowan, was
formerly excellent, after a flood in Septem-
ber, for sea trout, and later for salmon : I
have had good sport there, and some of my
friends have had better.

In Ireland there are some excellent rivers ;
and what you will hardly believe possible,
comparing the characters of the two nations,
some of them are taken better care of than
the Scotch rivers; which arises a good deal
from the influence of the Catholic priests,
when they are concerned in the interests of
the proprietors, or the Catholic peasantry.
I should place the Erne, at Ballyshannon,
as now the first river, for salmon fishing
from the banks with a rod, in the British
* Lax is the Teutonic word for salmon.

128 SALMONIA.

dominions ; and the excellent proprietor of
it, Dr. Thiel, is liberal and courteous to all
gentlemen fly fishers. The Moy, at Ballina,
is likewise an admirable salmon river ; and
sport, I believe, may almost always be se-
cured there in every state of the waters; but
the best fishing can only be commanded by
the use of a boat. I have taken in the Erne
two or three large salmon in the morning;
and in the Moy, three or four grilses, or, as
they are called in Ireland, graiils; and this
was in a very bad season for salmon fish-
ing. The Bann, near Coleraine, abounds
in salmon: but except in close time, when
it is unlawful to fish there, there are few
good casts in this river. In the Bush, a
small river about seven miles to the east of
the Bann, there is admirable salmon fishing
always after great floods; but in fine and
dry weather there is little use in trying this
river. I have hooked twenty fish in a day,
after the first August floods, in this river;
and, should sport fail, the celebrated Giant's
Causeway is within a mile of its mouth,
and offers to the lovers of natural beauty,

IRISH RIVERS. 129

or of geological research, almost inexhaust-
ible sources of interest. The Blackwater,
at Lismore, is a very good salmon river:
and the Shannon, above Limerick and at
Castle Connel, whenever the water is tole-
rably high, offers many good casts to the
fly fisher; but they can only be commanded
by boats. But there is no considerable
river along the northern or western coast,
— with the exception of the Avoca, which
has been spoiled by the copper mines, —
that does not afford salmon, and that does
not, if taken at the proper time, offer sport
to the salmon fisher. — But it is time for
us to return to our inn.

\

THE INN.

Poiet. — Should it be a fine day to-mor-
row, I think we shall have good sport: the
high tide will bring up fish, and the rain
and wind of yesterday will have enlarged the
river.

Hal. — To-morrow we must not fish: it is
the Lord's day, and a day of rest. It ought

K

130 SALMONIA.

likewise to be a day of worship and thanks-
giving to the great cause of all the benefits
and blessings we enjoy in this life, for which
we can never sufficiently express our grati-
tude.

Poiet. — I cannot see what harm there
can be in pursuing an amusement on a Sun-
day, which you yourself have called innocent,
and which is apostolic: nor do I know a
more appropriate way of returning thanks to
the Almighty Cause of all being, than in
examining and wondering at his works in
that great temple of nature, whose canopy
is the sky; and where all the beings and
elements around us are as it were proclaim-
ing the power and wisdom of Deity,

Hal. — I cannot see how the exercise of
fishing can add to your devotional feelings ;
but independent of this, you employ a ser-
vant to carry your net and gaff, and he, at
least, has a right to rest on this one day.
But even if you could perfectly satisfy your-
self as to the abstracted correctness of the
practice, the habits of the country in which
we now are, form an insurmountable obstacle

THE SABBATH DAY. 131

to the pursuit of the amusement: by in-
dulging in it, you would excite the indigna-
tion of the Highland peasants, and might
perhaps expiate the offence by a compul-
sory ablution in the river.

Poiet. — I give up the point: I make it a
rule never to shock the prejudices of any
person, even when they appear to me ridi-
culous; and I shall still less do so in a case
where your authority is against me; and I
have no taste for undergoing persecution,
when the cause is a better one. I now
remember that I have often heard of the
extreme severity with which the sabbath
discipline is kept in Scotland. Can you
give us the reason of this?

Hal. — I am not sufficiently read in the
Church History of Scotland to give the
cause historically; but I think it can hardly
be doubted that it is connected with the in-
tense feelings of the early Covenanters, and
their hatred with respect to all the forms
and institutes of the Church of Rome, the
ritual of which makes the Sunday more a

k2

132 SALMONIA.

day of innocent recreation, than severe dis-
cipline.

Phys. — Yet the disciples of Calvin, at
Geneva, who, I suppose, must have hated the
pope as much as their brethren of Scotland,
do not so rigidly observe the Sunday; and
I remember having been invited by a very
religious and respectable Genevese to a
shooting party on that day.

Hal. — I think climate and the imitative
nature of man modify this cause abroad.
Geneva is a little state in a brighter climate
than Scotland, almost surrounded by Catho-
lics, and the habits of the French and Sa-
voyards must influence the people. The
Scotch with more severity and simplicity of
manners, have no such examples of bad
neighbours, for the people of the north of
England keep the Sunday much in the
same way.

Poiet. — Nay, Halieus, call them not bad
neighbours ; recollect my creed, and respect
at least, what, if error, was the error of the
Christian world for 1000 years. The rigid

THE SABBATH DAY. loo

observance of the seventh clay appears to
me rather a part of the Mosaic, than of the
Christian dispensation. The Protestants of
this country consider the Catholics bigots,
because they enjoin to themselves, and per-
form certain penances for their sins; and
surely the Catholics may see a little more
like that spirit in the interference of the
Scotch in innocent amusements, on a day
celebrated as a festive day, that on which
our Saviour rose into immortal life, and se-
cured the everlasting hopes of the Christian.
I see no reason why this day should not be
celebrated with singing, dancing, and tri-
umphal processions, and all innocent signs
of gladness and joy. I see no reason why
it should be given up to severe and solitary
prayers, or to solemn and dull walks; or
why, as in Scotland, whistling even should
be considered as a crime on Sunday, and
humming a tune, however sacred, out of
doors, as a reason for violent anger and
persecution.

Orn. — I agree with Poietes, in his views
of the subject. I have suffered from the

134 SALMONIA.

peculiar habits of the Scotch Church, and
therefore may complain. Once in the north
of Ireland, when a very young man, I ven-
tured after the time of Divine Service, to
put together my rods, as I had been used to
do in the Catholic districts of Ireland, and
fish for white trout in the river at Rathmel-
ton, in pure innocence of heart, unconscious
of wrong, when I found a crowd collect
round me — at first I thought from mere
curiosity, but I soon discovered I was mis-
taken ; anger was their motive and vengeance
their object. A man soon came up exceed-
ingly drunk, and began to abuse me by
various indecent terms: such as a Sabbath
breaking papist, &c. It was in vain I as-
sured him I was no papist, and no inten-
tional Sabbath breaker; he seized my rod
and carried it off with imprecations ; and it
was only with great difficulty, and by rousing
by my eloquence some women who were
present, and who thought I was an ill-used
stranger, that I recovered my property.
Another time I was walking on Arthur's
Seat, with some of the most distinguished

THE SABBATH DAY. 135

professors of Edinburgh attached to the
geological opinions of the late Dr. Hutton,
a discussion took place upon the phenomena
presented by the rocks under our feet, and
to exemplify a principle, Professor Playfair
broke some stones, in which I assisted the
venerable and amiable philosopher. We
had hardly examined the fragments, when a
man from a crowd, who had been assisting
at a field preaching, came up to us and
warned us off, saying, " Ye think ye are
only stane breakers ; but I ken ye are Sab-
bath breakers, and ye deserve to be staned
with your ain stanes!" m

Hal. — Zeal of every kind is sometimes
troublesome, yet I generally suspect the per-
sons who are very tolerant of scepticism.
Those who firmly believe that a particular
plan of conduct is essential to the eternal
welfare of man, may be pardoned if they
show even anger, if this conduct is not pur-
sued. The severe observance of the Sab-
bath is connected with the vital creed of
these rigid presbyterians ; it is not therefore
extraordinary that they should enforce it

136 SALMONIA.

even with a perseverance that goes beyond
the bounds of good manners and courtesy.
They may quote the example of our Saviour,
who expelled the traders from the temple
even by violence.

Phys. — I envy no quality of the mind or
intellect in others; not genius, power, wit,
or fancy : but if I could choose what would
be most delightful, and I believe most useful
to me, I should prefer a firm religious belief
to every other blessing; for it makes life a
discipline of goodness — creates new hopes,
when all earthly hopes vanish; and throws
over the decay, the destruction of existence,
the most gorgeous of all lights ; awakens life
even in death, and from corruption and de-
cay calls up beauty and divinity: makes an
instrument of torture and of shame the lad-
der of ascent to paradise ; and far above all
combinations of earthly hopes, calls up the
most delightful visions of palms and ama-
ranths, the gardens of the blest, the security
of everlasting joys, where the sensualist and
the sceptic view only gloom, decay, annihila-
tion, and despair!

( 137 )

SIXTH DAY.

HALIEUS PoiETES OltNITHER —

Physicus.

MORNING.

Hal. — Well met, my friends! It is a fine
warm morning, there is a fresh breeze, the
river is in excellent order for fishing, and I
trust our good behaviour yesterday will
ensure us sport to day. There must be a
great many fresh run fish in the pool; and
after twenty-four hours rest, some of those
that were indisposed to take on Saturday
evening, may have acquired appetite. Pre-
pare your tackle and begin: but whilst you
are preparing I will mention a circumstance
which every accomplished fly fisher ought to
know, you changed your flies on Saturday
with the change of weather, — putting the
dark flies on for the bright gleams of the

138 SALMONIA.

sun, and the gaudy flies when the dark
clouds appeared. Now I will tell you of
another principle which it is as necessary to
know, as the change of flies for change of
weather; I allude to the different kinds of
fly to be used in particular pools, and even
for particular parts of pools. You have
fished in this deep pool; and if you were
to change it for a shallower one, such as that
above, it would be proper to use smaller flies
of the same colour ; and in a pool still deeper,
larger flies ; likewise in the rough rapid at
the top, a larger fly may be used than below
at the tail of the water: and in the Tweed
or Tay, I have often changed my fly thrice
in the same pool, and sometimes with suc-
cess— using three different flies for the top,
middle, and bottom. I remember when I
first saw Lord Somerville adopt this fashion,
I thought there was fancy in it; but experi-
ence soon proved to me how accomplished a
salmon fisher was my excellent and lamented
friend, and I adopted the lesson he taught
me, and with good results, in all bright
waters.

FLIES. 139

Poiet. — I will try the correctness of your
principle. Look at the fly now on my line ;
where would you recommend me to cast it?

Hal. — It is a large gaudy fly, and is fit
for no part of this pool, except the extremely
rough head of the torrent: there I dare say
it will take in this state of the waters.

Poiet. — Good, I hooked a large fish, but
alas! he is off: yet I thought he was fairly
caught.

Hal. — The hook, I think, turned round
at the moment you struck, and carried off
some scales from the outside of his mouth.

Poiet. — You are right: see, the scales
are on the hook. I cannot raise another
fish: I have tried almost all over the pool.
I thought I saw a fish rise at the tail of the
rapid.

Hal. — You did: he refused the fly.
Now put on a fly one third of the size and
of the same colour, and I think you will
hook that fish.

Poiet. — I have done so — and he is fast!
and a fine fish; I think a salmon. -

Hal. — It is a salmon, and one above

140 SALMONIA.

10 lbs. Play him with care, and do not let
him run into the rough part of the stream
where the large stones are.

Poiet. — It is, I think, the most active fish
I have yet played with. See, how high he
leaps ! He is making for the sea.

Hal. — Hold him tight, or you will lose
him.

Poiet. — Fear me not. I trust in spite of
his strength I shall turn him. You see I
show him the but of the rod, and his force
is counterpoised by a very long lever.

Hal.— You do well. But he has made a
violent spring, and, I fear, is off.

Poiet. — He is! — but, I think, not by any
fault of mine : he has carried off something.

Hal. — You played that fish so well, that
I am angry at his loss : either hook, link, or
line, failed you.

Poiet. — It is the hook, which you see is
broken not merely at the barb, but likewise
in the shank. What a fool I was, ever to
use one of these London or Birmingham
made hooks.

Hal. — The thing has happened to me

HOOKS. 141

often. I now never use any hooks for sal-
mon fishing, except those which I am sure
have been made by O'Shaugnessy, of Lime-
rick; for even the hooks made in Dublin,
though they seldom break, yet they now and
then bend, and the English hooks made of
cast steel in imitation of Irish ones, are the
worst of all. There is a fly nearly of the
same colour as that which is destroyed ; and
I can tell you that I saw it made at Limerick
by O'Shaughnessy himself, and tied on one
of his own hooks. Should you catch with
it a fish even of 30 lbs. I will answer for its
strength and temper: it will neither break
nor bend.

Poiet. — Whilst I am attaching your kind
present to my line, pray tell me how these
hooks are made, for I know you interested
yourself in this subject when at Limerick.

Hal. — Most willingly. I have even made
a hook, which though a little inferior in
form, in other respects, I think, I could
boast as equal to the Limerick hooks.
The first requisite for hook-making, is to
find good malleable iron of the softest and

142 SALMONIA.

purest kind — such as is procured from the
nails of old horse-shoes. This must be
made by cementation with charcoal into
good soft steel, and that into bars or wires
of different thickness for different sized
hooks, and then annealed. For the larger
hooks, the bars must be made in such a
form as to admit of cutting the barbs ; and
each piece, which serves for two hooks, is
larger at the ends, so that the bar appears
in the form of a double pointed spear, three,
four, or five inches long: the bars for the
finer hooks are somewhat flattened. The
artist works with two files, one finer than
the other for giving the point and polishing
the hook, and begins by making the barb,
taking care not to cut too deep, and filing
on a piece of hard wood, such as box wood,
with a dent to receive the bar made by the
edge of the file. The barb being made, the
shank is thinned and made flat, and the
polishing file applied to it; and by a turn of
the wrist round a circular pincers, the neces-
sary degree of curvature is given to it. The
hook is then cut from the bar, heated red

HOOKS. 143

hot, by being kept for a moment in a char-
coal fire, then plunged while hot into cold
water; then tempered by being put on iron
that has been heated in the same fire till it
becomes bright blue ; and whilst still hot, it
is immersed in candle-grease, where it gains
a black colour ; it is then finished.

Phys. — Nothing seems simpler than this
process. Surely London might furnish ma-
nufacturers for so easy a manipulation; and
I should think one of our friends, who is so
admirable a cutler, might even improve upon
the Irish process; at least the tempering
might be more scientifically arranged; for
instance, by the thermometer, and a bath of
fusible metal, the temperature at which steel
becomes blue being 580° Fah. might be con-
stantly preserved.

Hal. — Habit teaches our Irish artists this
point with sufficient precision. We should
have such hooks in England, but the object
of the fishing tackle makers is to obtain them
cheap, and most of their hooks are made to
sell, and good hooks cannot be sold but at a
good price.

144 SALMONIA.

Poiet. — I have heard formerly a good
angler complain that the Limerick hooks
were too heavy and clumsy. He preferred
hooks made at Kendal in Cumberland.

Hal. — I saw twenty years ago, hooks far
too heavy made at Limerick ; but this
O'Shaughnessy is, I think, a better maker
than his father was, and the curve and the
general form of the hook is improved. It
has now, I think, nearly the best form of a
curve for catching and holding, the point
protruding a little. The Kendal hook holds
well, but is not so readily fixed by the pull
in the mouth of the fish. The early Fellows
of the Royal Society, who attended to all
the useful and common arts, even improved
fish hooks; and Prince Rupert, an active
member of that illustrious body, taught the
art of tempering hooks to a person of the
name of Kirby ; under whose name for more
than a century, very good hooks were sold.
I shall take a walk towards the lake to enjoy
a view of its cloud-capped mountains, and I
hope on my return to find that you have all

SALMON OF THE EWE. 145

had your satisfaction in a good day's salmon
fishing.

Phys. — We shall crimp and cool a salmon,
if we catch a good one, for our dinner.
Hal. — Do so.

Orn. — But before you leave us, I wish
you would be good enough to inform us why
the salmon here are so different from those
I have seen elsewhere; for instance, some
caught in the Ahiess, in Rosshire, which we
saw in passing round the south coast of
Ross. These appear to me, thicker and
brighter fish, and one that I measured was
30 inches long, and 17 in circumference.

Hal. — I think I have seen broader fish
than even those of this river; but the salmon
which you happen to remember for compa-
rison, belonged to a small stream, which, I
think, in general are thinner and longer than
those in great rivers; and what I mentioned
on a former occasion with respect to trout,
holds good likewise with regard to salmon;
each river has a distinct kind. It is scarcely
possible to doubt that the varieties of the
salmon which haunt the sea, come to the

L

146 SALMONIA.

same rivers to breed in which they were
born, or where they have spawned before.
And this could hardly happen unless they
limited their migrations to a certain space in
the sea, the boundaries of which may be
regarded as the shore and probably deep
water, which may be considered as effectual
a boundary almost as land ; for fish do not
willingly haunt very deep water, which even
in summer is of low temperature, approaching
to 40°, and which contains little or no veget-
able food or insects, which the smaller fishes
search for, and the larger fishes follow the
smaller. It is however possible, that in win-
ter, all fish fond of heat will seek water
rather deeper than in summer; and char
and umbla in lakes are usually found in the
deepest parts, being fond of cool water, and
they come to spawn whenever the shallow
water of the lakes becomes cool, in October
or November. We cannot judge of the
senses of animals which breathe water, —
which separate air from water by their gills ;
but it seems probable that as the quality of
the water is connected with their life and

INSTINCT OF FISH. 147

health, they must be exquisitely sensible to
changes in water, and must have similar
relations to it, that an animal with the most
delicate nasal organs has to air. A vulture
or a dog scents not only particular food and
particular game at great distances, but even
makes of the smell a kind of language ; and
I doubt not that when dogs that have been
blindfolded and carried away from their
home, return to it, it is by the sense of
smell: to them each town, lane, or field,
must have a particular smell. And I have
seen even a blind horse, an animal in which
the sense of smell is less acute, evidently
find his way by his sense of smell, to his
master's house and stable, which was, in-
deed, near a tan-yard. The state of parts
of water in the sea or great lakes produced
by the impregnations carried down by par-
ticular streams, is much more permanent
than a like state in air: so that though the
knowledge given by the nasal organs may
be more easily communicated at a distance
by winds, yet that produced by streams on
the bronchia? of fishes is more invariable,

l 2

148 SALMONIA.

so that a migratory fish is less likely to be
deceived. Yet in great floods, often con-
nected with storms, or violent motion in the
waters near the shore, salmon sometimes
mistake their river. I remember in this way,
owing to a tremendous flood, catching with
the fly a large salmon that had mistaken his
river, having come into the Bush, near the
Giant's Causeway, instead of the Bann.
No fish can be more distinct in the same
species than the fish of these two rivers,
their length to their girth being nearly in a
ratio of 20:9 and 20: 13. — I am going; good
sport to you.

EVENING.

Hal. — I am sure I may congratulate you
on your sport, for I see on the bank a fine
salmon, three grauls or grilses, and three
large sea trout.

Orn. — You have not seen all, for we have
crimped two fish — one a great salmon, and
the other a trout almost a yard long, and
both in excellent season. We have had
great sport, and sport even of a kind which

FISHING WITH BAITS. 149

you will not guess at; for, when the tide
was falling the fish ceased to rise at the fly,
and I thought of trying them with a bait;
so we sent for our swivel tackle, and put
par or samlet on our hooks, as we bait for
pike — cutting off one ventral fin on one side,
and one pectoral fin on the other ; and
making the par spin in the most rapid
streams, we had several runs from fish,
and it was in this way that Poietes caught
this large sea trout, which gave excellent
sport.

Hal. — This kind of fishing is not uncom-
mon. I have often caught salmon in the
Tay, fishing with pars; but though the fish
ran at the bait when they would not rise at
the fly while the tide was ebbing, they
would have taken the par better still while
it was flowing.

Phys. — From my experience to-day, I
conclude the salmon has habits different
from the trout ; for I think the fish which
broke my hook, rose again at the artificial
fly in the same place.

Hal.— I think you are mistaken. Salmon

150 " SALMONIA.

are usually shyer even than trout, and I
never knew one in this season that had been
pricked even slightly, rise again at the arti-
ficial fly in the same pool. I should say
that their habits were precisely the same,
but with more sagacity on the side of the
salmon. It must have been another fish
which rose at your fly in the same place.
After such severe discipline I do not think
a fish would rise for many hours, even at a
natural bait.

Poiet. — Your experience is so great, that
I dare say I was mistaken, yet it seemed a
fish of the same size.

Hal. — Salmon often in this season haunt
the streams in pairs ; but so far from rising
again after being pricked, they appear to
me to learn when they have been some time
in the river, that the artificial fly is not food,
even without having been touched by the
hook. In the river at Galway, in Ireland, I
have seen above the bridge some hundreds
of salmon lying in rapid streams, and from
five to ten fishermen tempting them with
every variety of fly, but in vain. After a

SALMON. 151

fish had been thrown over a few times, and
risen once or twice and refused the fly, he
rarely ever took any notice of it again in
that place. It was generally nearest the
tide that fish were taken, and the place next
the sea was the most successful stand, and
the most coveted ; and when the water is
low and clear hi this river, the Galway fish-
ermen resort to the practice of fishing with
a naked hook, endeavouring to entangle it
in the bodies of the fish; a most unartist-
like practice. In spring fishing I have
known a hungry half-starved salmon rise at
the artificial fly a second time, after having
been very slightly touched by it; but even
this rarely happens, and when I have seen
it, the water has been coloured.

Phys. — Can you tell us why the fish rise
better at the fly when the tide is rising, than
when it is falling? There seems no reason
why flies should be sought for by the fish at
one of these seasons, rather than at the
other.

Hal. — The turn of the salt water brings
up aquatic insects, and perhaps small fish;

152 SALMONIA.

and I suppose salmon know this, and search
for food at a time when it is likely to be
found. I cannot think that in these pools
they can be on the look-out for flies, for
there are none ever on the surface of the
water; and I imagine they take the gaudy
fly, with its blue kingfisher and golden phea-
sant's feathers, for a small fish.

Orn. — I have always supposed they took
it for a libella, or dragon-fly; for I have
often seen these brilliant flies haunting the
water.

Hal.— I never saw a dragon-fly drop on
the water, or taken by a fish; and salmon
sometimes rise even in the salt water, where
dragon flies are never found. There is no
difficulty in explaining why salmon in inland
rivers should take flies, where natural flies
are abundant; but fish, when they have lain
long in pools in the river and fed on natural
flies, will no longer take these bright flies,
and then even a trout fly is often most suc-
cessful. I have sometimes thought that the
rising of salmon and sea trout at these bright
flies, as soon as they come from the sea into

FOOD OF SALMON. 153

rivers, might depend upon a sort of imper-
fect memory of their early food and habits ;
for flies form a great part of the food of the
salmon fry, which, for a month or two after
they are hatched, feed like young trouts —
and in March and April the spring flies are
their principal nourishment. In going back
to fresh water, they may perhaps have their
habits of feeding recalled to them, and
naturally search for their food at the sur-
face.

Poiet. — This appears to me very pro-
bable.— But it is late, and we must return
and compare the crimped trout and salmon ;
and I hope we shall have another good day
to-morrow, for the clouds are red in the
west.

Phys. — I have no doubt of it, for the red
has a tint of purple.

Hal. — Do you know why this tint por-
tends fine weather?

Phys. — The air when dry, I believe, re-
fracts more red, or heat-making, rays; and
as dry air is not perfectly transparent, they
are again reflected in the horizon. I have

154 SALMONIA.

generally observed a coppery or yellow sun-
set to foretel rain; but, as an indication
of wet weather approaching, nothing is more
certain than a halo round the moon, which
is produced by the precipitated water ; and
the larger the circle, the nearer the clouds,
and consequently the more ready to fall.

Hal. — I have often observed that the old
proverb is correct —

A rainbow in the morning is the shepherd's warning :
A rainbow at night is the shepherd's delight.

Can you explain this omen ?

Phys. — A rainbow can only occur when
the clouds containing, or depositing, the rain
are opposite tc the sun, — and in the evening
the rainbow is in the east, and in the morn-
ing in the west ; and as our heavy rains, in
this climate, are usually brought by the
westerly wind, a rainbow in the west indi-
cates that the bad weather is on the road,
by the wind, to us ; whereas the rainbow in
the east proves, that the rain in these clouds
is passing from us.

Poiet.— I have often observed, that when
the swallows fly high, fine weather is to be

INDICATIONS OF RAINY WEATHER. 155

expected or continued; but when they fly
low, and close to the ground, rain is almost
surely approaching. Can you account for
this ?

Hal. — Swallows follow the flies and gnats,
and flies and gnats usually delight in warm
strata of air ; and as warm air is lighter, and
usually moister, than cold air, when the
warm strata of air are high, there is less
chance of moisture being thrown down from
them by the mixture with cold air; but
when the warm and moist air is close to the
surface, it is almost certain that, as the cold
air flows down into it, a deposition of water
will take place.

Poiet. — I have often seen sea gulls as-
semble on the land, and have almost always
observed that very stormy and rainy weather
was approaching. I conclude that these
animals, sensible of a current of air approach-
ing from the ocean, retire to the land to
shelter themselves from the storm.

Orn. — No such thing. The storm is
their element; and the little petreL enjoys
the heaviest gale, because, living on the

156 SALMONIA.

smaller sea insects, he is sure to find his
food in the spray of a heavy wave — and you
may see him flitting above the edge of the
highest surge. I believe that the reason of
this migration of sea gulls, and other sea
birds, to the land, is their security of finding
food ; and they may be observed, at this
time, feeding greedily on the earth worms
and larvae, driven out of the ground by
severe floods : and the fish, on which they
prey in fine weather in the sea, leave the
surface and go deeper in storms. The
search after food, as we agreed on a former
occasion, is the principal cause why animals
change their places. The different tribes
of the wading birds always migrate when
rain is about to take place; and I remember
once, in Italy, having been long waiting, in
the end of March, for the arrival of the
double snipe in the Campagna of Rome, — a
great flight appeared on the 3d of April,
and the day after heavy rain sat in, which
greatly interfered with my sport. The
vulture, upon the same principle, follows
armies ; and I have no doubt that the augury

OMENS. 157

of the ancients was a good deal founded
upon the observation of the instincts of
birds. There are many superstitions of the
vulgar owing to the same source. For
anglers, in spring, it is always unlucky to
see single magpies, — but two may be always
regarded as a favourable omen; and the
reason is, that in cold and stormy weather
one magpie alone leaves the nest in search
of food, the other remaining sitting upon
the eggs or the young ones ; but when two
go out together, it is only when the weather
is warm and mild, and favourable for fish-
ing.

Poiet. — The singular connections of
causes and effects, to which you have just
referred, make superstition less to be won-
dered at, particularly amongst the vulgar;
and when two facts, naturally unconnected,
have been accidentally coincident, it is not
singular that this coincidence should have
been observed and registered, and that
omens of the most absurd kind should be
trusted in. In the west of England,. half a
century ago, a particular hollow noise on

158 SALMONIA.

the sea coast was referred to a spirit or
goblin, called Bucca, and was supposed to
foretel a shipwreck : the philosopher knows
that sound travels much faster than currents
in the air — and the sound always foretold
the approach of a very heavy storm, which
seldom takes place on that wild and rocky
coast, without a shipwreck on some part of
its extensive shores, surrounded by the At-
lantic.

Phys. — All the instances of omens you
have mentioned are founded on reason ; but
how can you explain such absurdities as
Friday being an unlucky day, the terror of
spilling salt, or meeting an old woman ? I
knew a man, of very high dignity, who was
exceedingly moved by these omens, and
who never went out shooting without a bit-
tern's claw fastened to his buttonhole by a
ribband — which he thought ensured him
good luck.

Poiet. — These, as well as the omens of
death watches, dreams, &c. are for the most
part founded upon some accidental coinci-
dences ; but spilling of salt, on an uncom-

OMENS. 159

mon occasion, may, as I have known it, arise
from a disposition to apoplexy, shown by an
incipient numbness in the hand, and may be
a fatal symptom; and persons, dispirited by
bad omens, sometimes prepare the way for
evil fortune; for confidence in success is a
great means of ensuring it. The dream of
Brutus, before the field of Pharsalia, pro-
bably produced a species of irresolution and
despondency, which was the principal cause
of his losing the battle : and I have heard
that the illustrious sportsman to whom you
referred just now, was always observed to
shoot ill, because he shot carelessly, after
one of his dispiriting omens.

Hal. — I have in life met with a few things
which I found it impossible to explain, either
by chance coincidences or by natural con-
nections ; and I have known minds of a very
superior class affected by them, — persons
in the habit of reasoning deeply and pro-
foundly.

Phys. — In my opinion, profound minds
are the most likely to think lightly of the
resources of human reason; and it is the

160 SALMONIA.

pert superficial thinker who is generally
strongest in every kind of unbelief. The
deep philosopher sees chains of causes and
effects so wonderfully and strangely linked
together, that he is usually the last person
to decide upon the impossibility of any two
series of events being independent of each
other; and in science, so many natural mira-
cles, as it were, have been brought to light,
— such as the fall of stones from meteors in
the atmosphere, the disarming a thunder
cloud by a metallic point, the production of
fire from ice by a metal white as silver, and
referring certain laws of motion of the sea
to the moon, — that the physical inquirer is
seldom disposed to assert, confidently, on
any abstruse subjects belonging to the order
of natural things, and still less so on those
relating to the more mysterious relations of
moral events and intellectual natures.

( 161 )

SEVENTH DAY.

halieus — poietes — ornither —
Physicus.

GRAYLING FISHING.

Scene — Leintwardine, near Ludlow.
Time — Beginning of October,

Hal. — You have reached your quarters.
Here is your home — a rural, peaceable,
and unassuming inn, with as worthy a host
and hostess as may be found in this part of
England. The river glides at the bottom
of the garden, and there is no stream in
England more productive of grayling. The
surrounding scenery is not devoid of interest,
and the grounds in the distance are covered
with stately woods, and laid out (or rather
their natural beauties developed) by the
hand of a master, whose liberal and enlight-
ened mind even condescended to regard the

M

162 SALMONIA.

amusements of the angler; and he could
hardly have contributed in a more effectual
manner to their comforts, than by placing
the good people, who were once his ser-
vants, in this comfortable inn.

pHYs. — Are we to fish according to any
rule, as to quantity or size offish?

Hal. — You are at perfect liberty to fish
as you like; but as it is possible you may
catch grayling only of this year, and which
are not longer than the hand, I conclude
you will return such pigmies to the river as
a matter of propriety, though not of neces-
sity.

Poiet. — This river seems formed of two
other streams, which join above our inn.
What are the names of its sources?

Hal. — The small river to the left is called
the Teme, or Little Teme, and though the
least stream, it gives name to the river : the
other, and more copious, stream, is called
the Clun. The little Teme contains prin-
cipally trout ; the Clun, both trout and
grayling : but the fish are more abundant
in the meadows, between this place and

GRAYLING. 168

Downton, than in other parts of the river ;
for above, the stream is too rapid and shal-
low to be favourable to their increase ; and
below, it is joined by other streams, and
becomes too abundant in coarse fish.

Poiet. — I cannot understand why the
grayling should be so scarce a fish in
England. It is abundant in many dis-
tricts on the continent ; but in this island it
is found, I believe, only in a few rivers, and
does not exist, I think, either in Ireland or
Scotland. Yet being an Alpine fish, and
naturally fond of cool water, it might have
been expected among the Highlands.

Hal. — I formerly used to account for this
by supposing it an imported fish, and not
indigenous ; but, in some of my continental
excursions, I have seen it living only under
such peculiar circumstances, that I doubt
the correctness of this my early opinion.

Poiet. — Which was, I conclude, that it
was introduced by the monks, in the time
when England was under the See of Rome.
As a favourite fish of St. Ambrose it was
worth cultivating, as well as for its own

m 2

1G4 SALM0NIA.

sake ; and I think you have done wrong to
relinquish this idea, for, as far as my recol-
lection serves me, the rivers that contain it
are near the ruins of great monasteries.
The Avon, near Salisbury; the Ure, near
Fountain's Abbey; the Wye, near the great
Abbey of Tintern; and, if I am not mis-
taken, in the lower part of this valley there
are the remains of an extensive establish-
ment of friars.

Hal. — But there are rivers near the ruins
of some of the most magnificent establish-
ments of this kind in Europe, and those
nearest the continent, where the grayling is
not found ; for instance, in the Stour, at
Canterbury. And if the grayling be an
imported fish, it is wonderful that it should
not be found in the rivers in Kent, and
along the south-west coast of England, — as
in Dorsetshire, Devonshire, and Cornwall,
— where the monastic establishments were
numerous; and why it should be found in
some rivers in the mountainous parts of
Wales — as in that near Llan-wrted and the
Dee ; not near Val Crusis Abbey, but fif-

GRAYLING. 165

teen miles higher up, between Corwen and
Bala.

Poiet. — It may have been a fish im-
ported from the continent, and carried to a
number of rivers, only a few of which may
have suited its habits, and there it has
remained and multiplied.

Hal. — There may be truth in what you
are now imagining, for the grayling requires
a number of circumstances in a river to
enable it to multiply.

Poiet. — What circumstances are these?

Hal. — A temperature in the water which
must be moderate — neither too high nor too
low. Grayling are never found in streams
that run from glaciers — at least near their
source; and they are killed by cold or heat.
I once put some grayling from the Teme,
in September, with some trout, into a con-
fined water, rising from a spring in the yard
at Downton ; the grayling all died, but the
trout lived. And in the hot summer of
1825, great numbers of large grayling died
in the Avon, below Ringwood, without
doubt killed by the heat in July.

Poiet.— But I have heard of grayling

166 SALMONIA.

being common in Lapland — at least so says
Linnaeus.

Hal. — I think it must be another species
of the same genus; the same as Back's gray-
ling, found by Captain Franklin and his
companions in North America, and distin-
guished by a much larger back fin. Having
travelled with the fishing rod in my hand
through most of the Alpine valleys in the
south and east of Europe, and some of those
in Norway and Sweden, I have always
found the char in the coldest and highest
waters; the trout, in the brooks rising in
the highest and coldest mountains; and the
grayling always lower, where the tempera-
ture was milder: and if in hot countries,
only at the foot of mountains, not far from
sources which had the mean temperature of
the atmosphere, — as in the Vipacco, near
Goritzia, and in the streams which gush
forth from the limestone caverns of the
Noric Alps. Besides temperature, grayling
require a peculiar character in the disposi-
tion of the water of rivers. They do not
dwell, like trout, in rapid shallow torrents ;

GRAYLING. 167

nor, like char or chub, in deep pools or
lakes. They require a combination of stream
and pool; they like a deep still pool for
rest, and a rapid stream above, and a gra-
dually declining shallow below, and a bottom
where marl or loam is mixed with gravel;
and they are not found abundant except in
rivers that have these characters. It is
impossible to see a more perfect specimen
of a grayling river than that now running
before us, in this part of its course. You
see a succession of deep still pools under
shady banks of marl, with gentle rapids
above, and a long shelving tail, where the
fish sport and feed. If there are no such
pools in a river, grayling will remain, pro-
vided the water be clear, and will breed;
but they cannot stem rapid streams, and
they are gradually carried down lower and
lower, and at last disappear. You know
the Test, one of the finest trout streams in
Hampshire, and of course in England;
when I first knew this stream, twenty years
ago, there were no grayling in it.' A gen-
tleman brought some from the Avon, and

168 SALMONIA.

introduced them into the river at Long-
stock, above Stockbridge. They were for
two or three years very abundant in that
part of the river; but they gradually de-
scended, and though they multiplied greatly,
there are now scarcely any above Stock-
bridge. There were, four years ago, many
in the river just below; but this year there
are very few found there, and the great pro-
portion that remains is found below Hough-
ton. I ought to mention, that the water is
particularly fitted for them, and they become
larger in this river than in their native place,
the Avon, — some of them weighing between
3 and 41bs. The trout, in all its habits of
migration, runs upward, seeking the fresh
and cool waters of mountain sources to
spawn in : the grayling, I believe, has never
the same habit of running up stream; I
never saw one leaping at a fall, where trout
are so often seen. Their large back fin
seems intended to enable them to rise and
sink rapidly in deep pools ; and the slender
nature of the body, towards the tail, renders
them much more unfit for leaping cataracts

GRAYLING. 169

than trout and salmon. The temperature of
the water, and its character as to still and
stream, seem of more importance than clear-
ness; for I have seen grayling taken in
streams that are almost constantly turbid, —
as in the Inn and the Salza in the Tyrol.
This fish appears to require food of a parti-
cular kind, feeding much upon flies and
their larvae, and not usually preying upon
small fish, as the trout. It has a very strong
stomach, almost approaching to that of the
gillaroo trout, and is exceedingly fond of
those larvae which inhabit cases, and which,
usually covered with sand or gravel, require
a strong membraneous stomach to enable
the extraneous matter to be separated. In
accordance with their general habits of feed-
ing, grasshoppers are amongst their usual
food in the end of summer and autumn;
and at all seasons, maggots, upon fine tackle
and a small hook, offer a secure mode of
taking them, — the pool having been pre-
viously baited for the purpose of angling,
by throwing in a handful or two a few
minutes before.

170 SALMONIA.

Poiet. — You just now said, that you
thought the Lapland fish considered by
Linnaeus as the grayling, was the same as
Back's grayling; but I find in the Appendix
to Capt. Franklin's narration, two graylings
described as belonging to the northern re-
gions,— one the Coregonus Signifer, and
another which seems to differ very little from
it, except being small in size. This seems
to agree as nearly as possible with our gray-
ling, with a difference of at most one spine
in the back fin. May not this in fact be the
same fish as the grayling of the Alps, only
rendered in a succession of generations fit
for a colder climate?

Hal. — This is certainly possible: there
is no doubt that in many successive genera-
tions, animals may be fitted to bear changes
which would have destroyed their progeni-
tors. It is said by Block, that graylings are
found in the Caspian Sea, and in the Baltic,
— masses of saline water; though, as I have
proved, the grayling of England will not
bear even a brackish water, without dying.
And notwithstanding the severity of the

GRAYLING.

171

winter in high northern latitudes, streams
under the ice may retain a temperature not
much lower than some of the Alpine sources.
I have seen grayling in Carniola, in a source
not quite 50°; and as, in large bodies of
water, the deepest part, in frost, is generally
the warmest — about 40°, the temperature at
which water is heaviest, I see no reason why
grayling may not be habituated to such a
temperature — coolness being generally fa-
vourable to their existence. But see, the
fog which had filled the valley and hid the
mountains from our sight is clearing away,
and I fear it will be a hot day. Before the
sun becomes too bright is the best time for
fishing in such a day as this. As soon as
the fog is fairly off, the water flies will begin
to appear, and fish to sport.

Phys. — I see the fog has already disap-
peared from the deep water in the meadow,
where I suppose the warmth of the air from
the considerable mass of the water is greater;
and which is further removed from the hills
sending down currents of cold air, from the
mixture of which with the moist warm air
above the river this phenomenon is produced.

172 SALMONIA.

I see some yellow flies beginning to come
out; they have already felt the influence of
the warm air: and look! a fish has just risen
opposite that bank, and has risen again: let
us prepare our tackle.

Poiet. — What flies shall we employ.

Hal.- — I recommend at least three ; for
the grayling lies deeper and is not so shy a
fish as the trout; and, provided your link is
fine, is not apt to be scared by the cast of
flies on the water. The fineness of the link
and of the guts to which your flies are at-
tached, is a most essential point, and the
clearer the stream the finer should be the
tackle. I have known good fishermen foiled
by using a gut of ordinary thickness, though
their fly was of the right size and colour.
Very slender transparent gut of the colour
of the water is one of the most important
causes of success in grayling fishing. Let
me see your hook : I will select a fine
stretcher. Now, for the lowest fly, use a
yellow-bodied fly, with red hackle for legs,
and landrail's wing: for the second, a blue
dun, with dun body; and for the highest,
the claret coloured body, with blue wings;

GRAYLING. 173

and let your first dropper fly be about three
feet from the stretcher and from the other
dropper, and let the hanging link which
attaches them be 3h inches long.

Phys. — There are several fish rising: I
shall throw at that opposite — he appears
large.

Hal. — It is a trout and not a grayling.

Phys. — How do you know?

Hal. — By his mode of rising. He is
lying at the top of the water, taking the flies
as they sail down by him, which a grayling
scarcely ever does. He rises rapidly from
the bottom or middle of the water, on the
contrary — darting upwards, and having
seized his fly, returns to his station. See,
there a grayling has risen. I do not mean,
however, that this habit is invariable ; I have
sometimes seen trout feed like grayling, and
grayling like trout, but neither of these fish
emits bubbles of air in rising, as dace and
chub do.

Phys. — I have one ! He has taken my
blue dun and must be a small one, for he
plays with no vigour.

Hal. — He is about libs. — a fish of two

174

SALMONIA.

years and a half old — very good for the
table. I will land him if possible.

Phys.— There! He is off!

Hal. — This happens often with grayling:
their mouths are tender, and unless the hook
catches in the upper lip, which is rather
thick, it is more than an equal chance that
he escapes you.

Phys. — Here, I have another, that has
taken the stretcher, which being a larger
hook, I hope he may be held. He is like-
wise a larger fish — but how oddly he spins!
This, I suppose, must be owing to his large
back fin, by which the stream carries him

GRAYLING.

GRAYLING.

175

round. There he is: he has quite twisted
my link ; it would not be amiss to have swi-
vels for this kind of fishing.

Hal. — It is a fish in good season, — dark
above, fair below, and weighs, I should sup-
pose, about ljlb.

GRAYLING.

^waij^gfci

Phys. — As this is the first grayling I have
seen of my own taking, I must measure,
weigh, and examine him.

Hal. — We can do this hereafter. See,
our fish barrel; he can be kept alive till a
more convenient time of the day.

Phys. — I am disposed to gratify my curi-
osity immediately; and I think to acquire

176 SALMONIA.

information is at least as interesting as catch-
ing fish. I shall kill him by a blow on the
head. He, I suppose, is not worth crimping
afterwards 1

Hal. — Certainly not, at this time; and
this is not necessary with a fish of this size,
which ought to be fried ; but if we catch a
large grayling, approaching to 2 lbs. he shall
be killed, crimped, and boiled, like our Den-
ham trout ; you will then find him excellent,
and not inferior, in my thinking, to the best
perch — more like the most exquisitely tasted
of all our fish, the red mullet.

Phys. — Out of the water, this is a hand-
some fish, broader round the middle, and
more hog-backed than the trout, but grace-
fully tapering towards the tail. The belly I
see is silvery with yellow, and the pectoral,
ventral and anal fins are almost gold-
coloured; the back gray with small black
spots, and the back fin beautifully coloured
bright purple, with black and blue spots.
It has likewise an agreeable odour; so that
both from its colour and smell it does not
seem undeserving the title given it by St.

GRAYLING. 177

Ambrose, of the flower of fishes. It mea-
sures, I find, 14 inches in length ; in girth Tj;
It has 10 spines in the pectoral fin, 23 in the
dorsal, 16 in the ventral, 14 in the anal, and
18 in the caudal.

Hal. — Now for its anatomy. Its stomach
is very thick, not unlike that of a char or
gillaroo trout, and contains flies, gravel, and
larvae, with their cases. The liver and
bowels do not differ much from those of a
trout; and the ovaria or roe, with eggs as
large as mustard seed, are on each side the
air bladder. Though a thicker fish, the
grayling does not weigh much more than the
trout in proportion to his length : the greater
breadth of back is compensated by the more
rapid tapering of tail, and a trout in very
high season will sometimes equal in weight
a grayling of the same length. The ova in
this fish, and in the species generally, are
very small at this time of the year; but in
the beginning of April, the season of their
spawning, they become nearly as large as
the ova of the trout —of the size of pepper-
corns. But I see, Poietes, your rod is in

N

178 SALMONIA.

order and there are many fish rising in this
large deep pool, some of which are large
grayling. The blue dun is on in quantity,
and there is both cloud and wind, which
half an hour ago we had no right to expect.
Let me advise you to use three flies of dif-
ferent shades of the dun: the stretcher, a
pale blue with yellow body; the first drop-
per, a winged fly with dun body; and the
third, a similar fly with dark body. There,
you see; he rose and refused your stretcher
— and again he has a second time refused it.
I think the colour of the dubbing is too
bright: try a winged fly for the stretcher
with a greenish body. Good — he has taken
it, and ought to be a large fish. Now we
have him: he is at least sixteen inches long,
and in good season. Ornither, I advise you
to use the same kind of fly, and to put up
your tackle precisely in the same way as
Poietes has done.

Poiet. — How well they rise! At that
moment I had two on my line: one of them
is gone, but I hope I shall land the other.

Hal. — Fish with activity while the cloud

GRAYLING FISHING. 179

lasts. I fear the sun is coming put, when it
will be more difficult to take fish. I shall
try the next pool, and I advise you to follow
me and fish by turns, — passing each other,
and taking different pools below, and so
wend your way downwards, fishing wherever
you see fish sporting. There is no better
part of the river than that pool below you,
and you cannot take a wrong direction.
Immediately beyond Burrington Bridge you
will find two excellent pools, and I advise
you to go no farther down to-day. If you
take a fish approaching 2 lbs. keep him alive
in the fish barrel for crimping; the smaller
fish you can kill, and carry with some rushes
in your basket; we shall at least be able to
send a dish of grayling to the patron of our
sport at Downton.

NOON.

Hal. — Well, gentlemen, I hope you have
been successful.

Poiet. — We have had good sport; but I
have been for some time reposing on this
bank, and admiring the scene below. How

n 2

180 SALMONIA.

fine are these woods! How beautiful these
banks! and the hills in the distance approach
to the character of mountains; and the pre-
cipitous cliff which forms the summit of that
distant elevation, looks like a diluvian monu-
ment, and as if it had been bared and torn
by a deluge which it had stemmed.

Hal. — It is one of the Clee hills, and its
termination is basaltic, and such rocks
usually assume such forms. But though
this spot is beautiful, to-morrow, I hope to
show you a still more exquisite landscape, —
cliffs and woods, and gushing waters, of a
character still more romantic. We will re-
turn to our inn by a shorter road; but tell
me, have you caught a large fish amongst
you and preserved him for crimping?

Poiet. — We have preserved two fishes in
the barrel, but I fear they are much below
your proposed size.

Hal. — They are good fish, and of the
average size of the large grayling in this
stream — about l|lbs. but they will make a
good variety placed in the middle of the
fried fish. And how many have you caught
altogether?

GRAYLING. 181

Poiet. — I have basketed (to coin a word)
three trout and six graylings.

Phys. — And I have taken seven gray-
lings. I caught trout likewise, but not con-
sidering them in proper season, I returned
them to the river: but Ornither has been
the most successful — he has killed ten gray-
lings.

Hal. — The trout is rarely good in this
river — at least I never saw one that cut red,
and yet I have taken them in July, when
their external appearance was perfect and
beautiful; but they have, to my taste, always
a flabby and soft character of flesh, and at
all seasons here are inferior for the table to
grayling; yet they often attain a consider-
able size. There are few small fish in these
streams, and I suppose the grayling, which
are most numerous, deprive the trout of
their proper share of the food, depending
upon larvae and flies.

Phys. — As we are walking through these
meadows, pray give us some information as
to the habits of the grayling, and his locali-
ties in England : I have been so much

182 SALMONIA.

pleased with my sport, that I shall become,
with St. Ambrose, a patron of the fish.

Hal. — The habits of the grayling, like
those of most other fish, are very simple.
He is, I believe, to a certain extent, grega-
rious— more so than the trout, and less so
than the perch, and the usual varieties of
the carp species known in England. His
form and appearance you have seen. He is
as yet scarcely in his highest or most perfect
season, which is in the end of November or
beginning of December, when his back is
very dark, almost black, and his belly and
lower fins almost gold-coloured ; but his
brightness, like that of most other fishes,
depends a good deal upon the nature of the
water: and on the continent, I have seen
fishes far more brilliantly coloured than in
England — the lower part almost a bright
orange, and the back fin approaching the
colour of the damask rose, or rather of an
anemone. The grayling spawns in April,
and sometimes as late as the beginning of
May: the female is generally then followed
by two or three males. She deposits her

HABITS OF THE GRAYLING. 183

ova in the tails of sharp streams, and the
males, rubbing against her, shed upon the
ova the melt or seminal fluid. I do not
know how long a time is required for the
exclusion of the young ones ; but in the end
of July, or beginning of August, they are of
the size of sprats, four or five inches long,
and already sport merrily at a fly. Though
I have often taken grayling in bad season,
yet I never observed upon them the same
kind of leech, or louse, which is so often
found upon the trout ; from which I conclude
that they seldom or never hide themselves,
or become torpid in the mud. The grayling
hatched, I conclude, in May or June, become
the same year, in September or October,
nine or ten inches long, and weigh from half
a pound to ten ounces; and the year after
they are from twelve to fifteen inches long,
and weigh from three-quarters to a pound ;
and these two sizes, as you have seen, are
the fish that most usually rise at the fly.
The first size in this river is called shote,
which is a Celtic word, I believe, applied
likewise in the west of England to small

184 SALMONIA.

trout. Of their growth after the second
year I cannot speak, this must depend much
on their food and place of residence. Mar-
sigli says, they do not grow after the third
year, and at this age, in Austria, they are
sometimes a cubit long ; but though I have
fished much in that country, I never saw
any so long. If they are taken into new
and comparatively still water recently made,
and when food is plenty, they grow very
fast : under these circumstances, I have seen
them above 3 lbs. In the Test, where, as I
mentioned before, the grayling has been
only recently introduced, they have some-
times been caught between 3 and 41bs. — in
this river I never took one above 2 lbs. but
I have heard of one being taken of 2$ lbs.
The grayling is a rare fish in England, and
has never been found in Scotland and Ire-
land (as Poietes observed before) ; and there
are few rivers containing all the conditions
necessary for their increase. I know of no
grayling river farther west than the Avon,
in Hampshire: they are found in some of
the tributary streams of this river which rise

GRAYLING RIVERS. 185

in Wiltshire. I know of no river containing
them on the north coast west of the Severn :
there are very few only in the upper part of
this river, and in the tributary streams which
form it in North Wales. There are a few
in the Wye and its tributary streams. In
the Lug, which flows through the next
valley, in Herefordshire, many grayling
are found. In the Dee, as I have said be-
fore, they are found, but are not common.
In Derbyshire and Staffordshire, the Dove,
the Wye, the Trent, and the Blithe, afford
grayling; in Yorkshire, on the north coast,
some of the tributary streams of the Ribble,
the Erne, and the Wharf; and in the south
of Yorkshire, the Humber, the Derwent,
and its tributary streams, particularly the
Rye. There may be some other localities
of this fish unknown to me; but as I have
fished much, and inquired much respecting
the places where it is found, I think my
information tolerably correct and complete.

Phys. — Is this fish to be fished for in
spring ?

Hal. — He is to be fished for at all times,

186 SALMONIA.

for he is rarely so much out of season as to
be a bad fish; and when there are flies on
the water, will generally take them : but as
the trout may be considered as a spring and
summer fish, so the grayling may be con-
sidered as winter and autumnal fish.

Phys. — Of course the grayling is taken
in spring with the same imitation of flies as
the trout ?

Hal. — The same. As far as flies are
concerned, these two species feed alike;
though I may say, generally, that the gray-
ling prefers smaller flies, and the varieties of
the ephemerae or phryganese, of the smallest
size, form their favourite food. Yet gray-
lings do not refuse large flies; and in the
Avon and Test, May flies, and even moths,
are greedily taken in the summer by large
grayling. Flies, likewise, that do not in-
habit the water, but are blown from the
land, are likewise good baits for grayling.
There is no method more killing, for large
grayling, than applying a grasshopper to the
point of a leaded hook, the lead and shank
of which are covered with green and yellow

BAITS FOR GRAYLING. 187

silk, to imitate the body of the animal. This
mode of fishing is called sinking and draw-
ing. I have seen it practised in this river
with as much success as maggot fishing;
and the fish taken were all of the largest
size; the method being most successful in
deep holes, where the bottom was not visible,
which are the natural haunts of such fish.
In the winter, grayling rise for an hour or
two, in bright and tolerably warm weather;
and, at this time, the smallest imitations of
black or pale gnats that can be made, on
the smallest sized hook, succeed best in
taking them. In March, the dark-bodied
willow fly may be regarded as the earliest
fly; the imitation of which is made by a
dark claret dubbing and a dun hackle, or
four small starling's wing feathers. The
blue dun comes on in the middle of the day
in this month, and are imitated by dun
hackles for wings and legs, and an olive
dubbing for body. In mild weather, in
morning and evening in this month, and
through April, the green tail, or grannom,
comes on in great quantities, and is well

188 SALMONIA.

imitated by a hen pheasant's wing feather,
a grey or red hackle for legs, and a dark
peacock's harle, or dark hare's ear fur, for
the body. The same kind of fly, of a larger
size, with paler wings, kills well in the even-
ing, through May or June. The imitation
of a water insect called the spider fly, with
a lead-coloured body and woodcock's wings,
is said to be a killing bait, on this and other
rivers, in the end of April and beginning of
May; but I never happened to see it on the
water. The dark alder fly, in May and
June, is taken greedily by the fish : it is
imitated by a dark-shaded pheasant's wing,
black hackle for legs, and a peacock's harle,
ribbed with red silk, for the body. At this
season, and in July, imitations of the black
and red palmer worms, which I believe are
taken for black or brown, or red beetles or
cockchafFers, kill well; and, in dark wea-
ther, there are usually very light duns on
the water. In August, imitations of the
house fly and blue bottle, and the red and
black ant fly, are taken, and are particularly
killing after floods in autumn, when great

BAITS FOR GRAYLING. 189

quantities of the fly are destroyed and
washed down the river. In this month, in
cloudy days, pale-blue duns often appear;
and they are still more common in Septem-
ber. Throughout the summer and autumn,
in fine calm evenings, a large dun fly, with
a pale yellow body, is greedily taken by
grayling after sunset; and the imitation of
it is very killing. In the end of October,
and through November, there is no fly fish-
ing but in the middle of the day, when imi-
tations of the smaller duns may be used with
great success; and I have often seen the
fish sport most, and fly fishing pursued with
the greatest success, in bright sunshine, from
twelve till half-past two o'clock, after severe
frosts in the morning; and I once caught a
very fine dish of fish on the 7th of Novem-
ber. It was in the year 1816; the summer
and autumn had been peculiarly cold and
wet, and, probably in consequence of this,
the flies were in smaller quantity at their
usual season, and there was a greater pro-
portion later in the year.

Grayling, if you take your station by the

190 SALMONIA.

side of a river, will rise nearer to you than
trout, for they lie deeper, and therefore are
not so much scared by an object on the
bank; but they are more delicate in the
choice of their flies than trout, and will
much oftener rise and refuse the fly. Trout,
from lying nearer the surface, are generally
taken before grayling, where the water is
slightly coloured, or after a flood: and in
rain, trout usually rise better than grayling,
though it sometimes happens, when great
quantities of flies come out in rain, grayling,
as well as trout, are taken with more cer-
tainty than at any other time ; — the artificial
fly, in such cases, looks like a wet fly, and
allures even the grayling, that generally is
more difficult to deceive than trout in the
same river.

Phys. — As I was looking into a ditch
coming down the river, which is connected
with it, I saw a very large eel at the bottom,
who appeared to me to be feeding on a
small grayling: — are there many of this fish
in the Teme, and do they breed here?

Hal. — There are many of this fish in the

GENERATION OF EELS. 191

river; but to your question, do they breed
here? I must answer in the negative. The
problem of their generation is the most
abstruse, and one of the most curious, in
natural history; and though it occupied the
attention of Aristotle, and has been taken
up by most distinguished naturalists since
his time, it is still unsolved.

Phys. — I thought there was no doubt on
the subject. Lacepede, whose book is the
only one I have read with attention, asserts,
in the most unqualified way, that they are
viviparous.

Hal. — I remember his assertion, but I
looked in vain for proofs.

Phys. — I do not remember any facts
brought forward on the subject ; but tell us
what you think upon it.

Hal. — I will tell you all I know, which is
not much. This is certain, that there are
two migrations of eels, — one up and one
down rivers, one from and the other to the
sea; the first in spring and summer, the
second in autumn or early winter. , The
first of very small eels, which are sometimes

192 SALMONIA.

not more than two or two and a half inches
long; the second of large eels, which some-
times are three or four feet long, and which
weigh from 10 to 15, or even 20 lbs. There
is great reason to believe that all eels found
in fresh water are the results of the first
migration : they appear in millions in April
and May, and sometimes continue to rise
as late even as July and the beginning of
August. I remember this was the case in
Ireland, in 1823. It had been a cold back-
ward summer, and when I was at Bally-
shannon, about the end of July, the mouth
of the river, which had been in flood all this
month, under the fall, was blackened by
millions of little eels, about as long as the
finger, which were constantly urging their
way up the moist rocks by the side of the
fall. Thousands died, but their bodies re-
maining moist, served as the ladder for
others to make their way ; and I saw some
ascending even perpendicular stones, making
their road through wet moss, or adhering to
some eels that had died in the attempt.
Such is the energy of these little animals,

GENERATION OF EELS. 193

that they continue to find their way, in im-
mense numbers, to Loch Erne. The same
thing happens at the fall of the Bann,
and Loch Neagh is thus peopled by them :
even the mighty Fall of ShafFausen does not
prevent them from making their way to the
Lake of Constance, where I have seen many
very large eels.

Phys. — You have shown that some eels
come from the sea, but I do not think the
facts prove that all eels are derived from
that source.

Hal. — Pardon me — I have not concluded.
There are eels in the Lake of Neufchatel,
which communicates by a stream with the
Rhine; but there are none in the Lake of
Geneva, because the Rhone makes a subter-
raneous fall below Geneva ; and though small
eels can pass by moss or mount rocks, they
cannot penetrate limestone rocks, or move
against a rapid descending current of water,
passing, as it were, through a pipe. Again :
no eels mount the Danube from the Black
Sea; and there are none found in the great
extent of lakes, swamps and rivers commu-

o

194 SALMONIA.

nicating with the Danube, — though some of
these lakes and morasses are wonderfully
fitted for them, and though they are found
abundantly in the same countries, in lakes
and rivers connected with the ocean and
the Mediterranean. Yet, when brought
into confined water in the Danube, they
fatten and thrive there. As to the instinct
which leads young eels to seek fresh water,
it is difficult to reason : — probably they pre-
fer warmth, and, swimming at the surface
in the early summer, find the lighter water
warmer, and likewise containing more in-
sects, and so pursue the courses of fresh
water, as the waters from the land, at this
season, become warmer than those from the
sea. Mr. J. Couch (Lin. Trans, tit. xiv.
p. 70) says the little eels, according to his
observation, are produced within reach of
the tide, and climb round falls to reach
fresh water from the sea. I have sometimes
seen them, in spring, swimming in immense
shoals in the Atlantic, in Mount Bay, making
their way to the mouths of small brooks and
rivers. When the cold water from the

MIGRATION OF EELS. 195

autumnal flood begins to swell the rivers,
this fish tries to return to the sea ; but
numbers of the smaller ones hide themselves
during the winter in the mud, and many of
them form, as it were, masses together.
Various authors have recorded the migra-
tion of eels in a singular way, — such as Dr.
Plot, who, in his History of Staffordshire,
says they pass in the night, across meadows,
from one pond to another : and Mr. Arde-
ron (in Trans. Royal Soc.) gives a distinct
account of small eels rising up the flood-
gates and posts of the water-works of the
city of Norwich; and they made their way
to the water above, though the boards were
smooth planed, and five or six feet perpendi-
cular. He says, when they first rose out of
the water upon the dry board, they rested
a little — which seemed to be till their slime
was thrown out, and sufficiently glutinous —
and then they rose up the perpendicular
ascent with the same facility as if they had
been moving on a plane surface. — (Trans.
Abr. vol. ix. p. 311.) There can, I think,
be no doubt that they are assisted by their

o 2

196 SALMONIA.

small scales, which, placed like those of
serpents, must facilitate their progressive
motion: these scales have been microsco-
pically observed by Lewenhoeck. — (Phil.
Trans, vol. iv.) Eels migrate from the salt
water of different sizes, but I believe never
when they are above a foot long — and the
great mass of them are only from two and
a half to four inches. They feed, grow, and
fatten in fresh water. In small rivers they
seldom become very large ; but in large
deep lakes they become as thick as a man's
arm, or even leg ; and all those of a consi-
derable size attempt to return to the sea
in October or November, probably when
they experience the cold of the first autumnal
rains. Those that are not of the largest
size, as I said before, pass the winter in the
deepest parts of the mud of rivers and
lakes, and do not seem to eat much, and
remain, I believe, almost torpid. Then-
increase is not certainly known in any given
time, but must depend upon the quantity of
their food: but it is probable they do not
become of the largest size, from the small-

CONGER EEL. 197

est, in one or even two seasons; but this,
as well as many other particulars, can
only be ascertained by new observations
and experiments. Block states, that they
grow slowly, and mentions that some had
been kept in the same pond for fifteen
years. As very large eels, after having
migrated, never return to the river again,
they must (for it cannot be supposed that
they all die immediately in the sea) remain
in salt water; and there is great probability
that they are then confounded with the
conger, which is found of different colours
and sizes — from the smallest to the largest
— from a few ounces to one hundred pounds
in weight. The colour of the conger is
generally paler than that of the eel; but,
in the Atlantic, it is said that pale congers
are found on one side of the Wolf Rock,
and dark ones on the other. The conger
has breathing tubes, which are said not to
be found in the other eel ; but to determine
this would require a more minute examina-
tion than has yet been made. Both the
conger and common eel have fringes along
the air bladder, which are probably the

198 SALMONIA.

ovaria; and Sir E. Home thinks them her-
maphrodite, and that the seminal vessels
are close to the kidneys; but this circum-
stance demands confirmation from new dis-
sections, and some chemical researches upon
the nature of the fringes and the supposed
melt. If viviparous, and the fringes contain
the ova, one mother must produce tens of
thousands, the ova being remarkably small;
and it appears more probable that they are
oviparous, and that they deposit their ova
in parts of the sea near deep basins, which
remain warm in winter. This might be as-
certained by experiment, particularly on the
coasts of the Mediterranean. I cannot find
that they haunt the Arctic ocean, which is
probably of too low a temperature to suit
their feelings or habits ; and the Caspian
and the Black Sea are probably without
them, from their not being found in the
Volga or Danube : these, being shallow seas,
are perhaps too cold for them in winter.
From the time that small eels begin to
migrate (April), it is probable that they are
generated in winter; and the pregnant eels

CONGER EEL. 199

ought to be looked for in November, De-
cember, and January. I opened one in
December, in which the fringes were abun-
dant, but I did not examine them under the
microscope, or chemically. I hope this
curious problem will not remain much longer
unsolved.

( 200 )

EIGHTH DAY.

HALIEUS — PoiETES — OrNITHER-

Physicus.

SCENE— DOVVNTON.

Poiet. — This is a beautiful day, and I
think, for fishing, as well as for the enjoy-
ment of the scenery, finer than yesterday.
The wind blows from the south, and is
balmy; and though a few clouds are collect-
ing, they are not sufficiently dense to ex-
clude the warmth of the sun, and, as honest
fishermen, we ought to prefer his warmth to
his light.

Hal. — I do not think, as the day ad-
vances, there will be any deficiency of light ;
and I shall not be sorry for this, as it will
enable you to see the grounds of Downton,
and the distances in the landscape, to more
mdvantage : nor will light interfere much

SCENERY. 201

with our sport in this valley, where, as you
see, there is no want of shade.

Poiet. — This spot is really very fine.
The fall of water, the picturesque mill, the
abrupt cliff, and the bank, covered with
noble oaks, above the river, compose a scene
such as I have rarely beheld in this island.

Hal. — We will wander a little longer
through the walks. There you will enter a
subterraneous passage in the rock beyond
the mossy grotto. Behold, the castle, or
mansion-house, clothed in beautiful vege-
tables, of which the red creeper is most
distinct, rises above on the hill ! After we
have finished our walk and our fishing, I
will, if you please, take you to the house
and introduce you to its worthy master,
whom to know is to love, and to whom all
good anglers should be grateful, and who
has a strong claim to a more extensive gra-
titude— that of his country and of society —
by his scientific researches on vegetable na-
ture, which are not merely curious, but useful,
and which have already led to great improve-

202 SALMONIA.

ments in our fruits and plants, and generally
extended the popularity of horticulture.

Phys. — We shall be much obliged to
you for the favour — provided always, you
know it will not be an intrusion.

Hal. — Trust this to me. And now, as
all circumstances are favourable, begin your
fishing. I recommend to you that fine pool
below the bridge, there are always grayling
to be caught there — and I already see some
rising.

Phys. — With what imitation of flies shall
we fish?

Hal. — As yesterday; a yellow fly for your
stretcher, and two duns for the droppers.
There, you have a good fish. And now
another — both graylings.

Phys. — I shall try the rapid at the top of
this long large pool; I see several fish rising
there.

Hal. — Do so. You will catch fish there
— trout, but I fear no grayling.

Phys.— Why not?

Hal.—- In that part of the stream the

NATURAL HISTORY.

203

water is too rough for grayling, and they like
to be nearer the deep water. Lower down
in the same pool there are large grayling to
be caught.

Phys. — You are in the right; the fish I
have is a large trout — at least he is not much
less than 2 lbs. I have landed him, shall I
keep him?

Hal. — As you please: he is as good as
he ever was, or ever will be in this water.

Phys. — There are now more yellow flies
out than I have seen before this season.
They have appeared suddenly, as if sprung
from that large alder. Though you gave
us in a former conversation some account of
the flies used in fishing, yet I hope you have
not forgot your promise to favour us with
some more details on this subject, which,
both as connected with angling, and with
a curious part of natural history, is very
interesting.

Hal. — I wish it was in my power to give you
information from my own observation, but I
am sorry to say this has been very .limited ;
and though the English are peculiarly the

204 SALMONIA.

fly fishing nation, yet our philosophical an-
glers have not contributed much to this
department of science, and what has been
done is principally by foreigners, amongst
whom Swammerdam, Reaumer, and above
all De Geer, are pre-eminent. To attempt
to collect and apply the knowledge collected
by these celebrated men, would carry us far
beyond the limits of a day's conversation,
and as a great proportion of the insects that
fly, walk, or crawl, are the food of fishes, a
dissertation, or discourse on this subject,
would be almost a general view of natural
history. You know that frogs, crawfish,
snails, earthworms, spiders, larvae of every
kind, millipedes, beetles, squillse, moths,
water flies, and land flies, are all eaten by
trout; and I once heard the late Sir Joseph
Banks say, that he found a large toad stuck
in the throat of a trout ; but as the skin of
this animal is furnished with an exceedingly
acrid secretion, it probably had been dis-
gorged after being swallowed by a fish ex-
ceedingly hungry. But though I have found
most of the insect tribes, and many small

NATURAL HISTORY FISH. 205

fishes, even of the most ravenous kind, as
pike, in the stomachs of trout, it never hap-
pened to me to see a toad there. I might
give you an account of the birth and life of
frogs, which, with respect to their generation,
resemble fish, and which, when first excluded
from the egg, may be considered in the tad-
pole state as fish; and you would not find
their singular metamorphosis without inter-
est. Or, I could detail to you, the true his-
tories which naturalists have given of the
habits of snails and earthworms, and of the
loves of these apparently contemptible ani-
mals, from whom almost all sources of plea-
sure are cut off, and yet, who in their large
hermaphrodite organs, and double inter-
course, must, according to all analogy, pos-
sess decided advantage over most other
beings of creation. Even the renewing or
change of shell in the crawfish, when he falls
an easy prey to fish in his soft state, is a
curious subject not only for the physiologist,
but likewise for the chemist. But on these
points, I must request you to refer to writers
in Natural History: yet I shall perform my

206 SALMONIA.

promise, and say a few words on winged in-
sects, which, in their origin and metamor-
phosis, offer the most extraordinary known
miracles perhaps of terrestrial natures. You
must be acquainted with the origin of our
common house flies?

Phys. — We know that they spring from
maggots, and that both the common and
blue bottle fly deposit their ova in putrid
animal matter, where the eggs are hatched
and produce maggots, which, after feeding
upon the decomposing animal material, gra-
dually change, gain a hard or horny coat,
seem as if entombed, and wait in a kind of
apparent death or slumber, till they are ma-
ture for a new birth, when they burst their
coatings and appear in the character of
novel beings — fitted to inhabit another ele-
ment.

Hal. — The history of the birth and me-
tamorphosis of all other winged insects is
very similar, but with peculiarities dependent
upon their organs, wants, and habits. You
know the curious details with which we have
been furnished by natural historians of bees

NATURAL HISTORY — INSECTS. 207

and ants, which live in a kind of society.
The ant flies, of which, as I mentioned to
you, imitations are sometimes used by fish-
ermen, were originally maggots, and lastly
became furnished with wings — not however,
passing the aurelia state for this last trans-
formation.

Poiet. — I beg your pardon, but having
lately read an account of these animals in
the very interesting book, called " An Intro-
duction to Entomology," I think I can cor-
rect you in one particular; that the maggot
of the ant does assume the form of a chrysalis
or pupa, before it becomes a winged animal.

Hal. — It is true that the immediate tran-
sition of the maggot is into a pupa, then into
an ant, which is furnished with a kind of
case from which the wings emerge for their
perfect transformation into the fly or imago
state. The males die soon after the sexual
intercourse ; the females when impregnated
lose their wings, and either voluntarily or by
force enter into society with neuter or work-
ing ants for the purpose of raising a new
generation.

208 SALMONIA.

Poiet. — You are perfectly right; and
though it would be irrelevant to our present
subject, I could almost wish for the sake of
amusing our friends, that you would detail
to us some other parts of the marvellous
history of these wonderful animals, which if
not so well authenticated, might be supposed
a philosophical romance. Such as the neu-
ter or working ants feeding each other and
their offspring; the manner in which they
make, defend, and repair their dwellings,
provide their food, watch and attend to the
female, and take care of her eggs; their ex-
traordinary mode of acquiring and defending
the aphides and cocci, which bear to them
the same relation that cattle do to man,
which are fed by them with so much care,
and the milk of which forms so important a
part of their food; the predatory excursions
of a particular species to carry off pupa
which they bring up slaves.

Hal. — To enter into any of the details of
the history of insects in society, would carry
us into an interminable, though interesting
subject, which would soon lose all relation to

ENTOMOLOGY. 209

fly fishing; and I fear what I have to say,
even on the winged insects connected with
this amusement, will occupy too much of
your time, for we have not more than an
hour to devote to this object.

Poieta — Tell us what you please; we are
attentive.

Hal. — The various individuals of the
gryllus, or grasshopper tribe, spring from
larvae which do not differ much from the
perfect insect, except in possessing no wings.
The eggs are deposited in our meadows, and
many species of this animal are gregarious,
and the migrations in swarms are well known.
The butterfly and moths as you know lay
eggs which produce caterpillars, and these
caterpillars, after feeding upon vegetable
food, spin themselves — frame houses or beds,
cocoons, in which they are transformed into
aurelias, and from which they burst forth as
perfect winged insects. The libellula, or
dragon fly, the most voracious of the winged
insect tribe, deposits her eggs in such a
manner that the larvae fall into the -water,
and after destroying and feeding upon almost

p

210 SALMONIA. .

all the aquatic insects found in this element,
and changing their skins at various times,
they emerge in their winged form the tyrants
of the insect generations in the air. The
gnats and tipulae have a similar existence.
The gnats, the female of which only is said
by De Geer to bite man, or suck human
blood, in Sweden, lays her eggs in a kind of
little boat or cocoon of her own spinning.
These eggs are hatched on the surface of
the water, and produce the larvae, which un-
dergo another change into peculiar nymphae,
which still retain the power of swimming
and moving, from which the perfect insect
is produced during the summer heat. The
flies which I mentioned to you in a former
conversation, under the name of the grannom,
or green tail, (see fig. 2,) are of the class
phryganece, which includes all those water
flies which have long antennae, and wings
something like those of moths, but usually
veined and without powder. The yellow
flies which you saw a short time since sport-
ing on the banks of the river, are of this
kind. The phryganeae (see fig. 1, 2, 3,

PIIRYGANEtf:. 211

and 4,) have four wings, which when closed
lie flat on their hacks, the two upper ones
being folded over the lower ones: the flies
called by anglers the willow fly, the alder
fly, {see Jig. 4,) and the dun cut, are of this
kind. The phryganeae lay their eggs on the
leaves of willows, or other trees, which over-
hang the water; they are fastened by a sort
of gluten to the surface of the leaf: when
hatched, they produce small hexapode larvae,
which fall into the water, and by a curious
economy of nature collect round themselves,
some, parts of plants or small sticks ; some,
gravel; and some, even shell fish. They
spin themselves a sort of case of silk from
their bodies, and by a gluten, which exudes
from this case, cement their materials toge-
ther. They feed upon aquatic plants, and
sometimes upon insects, protruding only
their head and legs from the case. When
about to undergo transmutation, they quit
their cases, rise to the surface, and wait for
this process of nature in the air; but some
species fix themselves on plants or stones:
they burst the skin of the larvae, and appear

y2

212 SALMON1A.

perfect animals, male and female, fitted for
the office of reproduction. In the early
spring, the species which are called green
tails, from the colour of the bags of eggs in
the female, appear in the warm gleams of
sunshine which happen in cloudy days, and
they then cover the face of the water, and
are greedily seized on by the fish. As the
season advances they appear principally in
the morning and evening. In the heat of
summer the phrygane® are almost nocturnal
flies, and seem to have the habits of moths:
at this season, now, I should say, the few
flies that appear are generally seen in the
day-time. The eplunnerce, another class of
flies peculiarly interesting to the fisherman,
differ from the phryganeae in carrying their
wings perpendicularly on their backs, and in
having long filaments or hairs in their tails.
The March brown, (see fig. 8,) the various
shades of duns, (see fig. 5, 6, and 7,) which
I described to you on a former occasion;
the green (see fig. 9 and 10,) and white
May fly, the red spinner, (see fig. 11,)
are all of the class ephemerae. These flies

EPHEMERAE.

213

are produced from larvae which inhabit the
water, which can both crawl and swim, and
which generally live in holes they make in
the bottom. They change their coats seve-
ral times before they become nymphae. They
quit their skin on the surface of the water,
but even after they become flies, they have
another transformation to undergo before
they are perfect animals fitted for generation.
They make use of their wings only to fly to
some dry bank, or trunk of a tree, where
they gradually disencumber themselves of
the whole of the outward habiliment they
brought from the water, including their
wings. They become lighter, more beauti-
ful in colour, and then begin their sports in
the sunshine— appearing like what might be
imagined of spirits freed from the weight of
their terrestrial covering. This last trans-
mutation has been observed and fully de-
scribed by some celebrated naturalists, in
the case of the May flies, and one or two
other species, and it probably will be found
a general circumstance attached to the class,
and I have often observed what appeared to

214 SALMONIA.

me to be the cast-off skins of the small spe-
cies of ephemerae on the banks of rivers and
floating in the water. The green ephemera,
or May fly, lays her eggs sitting on the
water, which instantly sink to the bottom:
and most of the duns, or small slender-
winged flies, do the same. The grey or
glossy-winged May fly, commonly called the
grey drake, performs regular motions in the
air above the water, rising and falling, and
sitting, as it were, for a moment on the sur-
face, and rising again, at which time she is
said to deposit her eggs. To attempt to
describe all the variety of ephemerae, which
sport on the surface of the water at different
times of the day, throughout the year, would
be quite an endless labour. Some of them
appear to live only a few hours, and none of
them, I believe, more than a few days. In
spring and autumn a new variety of these
flies sometimes appears every day, or even
in different parts of the same day. Of the
beetle, or colyoptera genus, there are many
varieties fed on by fishes. These insects,
which are distinguished, as you know, by

EPHEMERAE. 215

four wings, two husky-like shells above, and
two slender and finer ones below, are bred
from eggs, which they deposit in the ground,
or in the excrement of animals, which, pro-
ducing larvae in the usual way, are converted
into beetles, and these larvae themselves are
good bait for fish. The brown beetle, or
cockchafFer, the fern fly, and the grey beetle,
which are abundant in the meadows in the
summer, are often blown into the water, and
are the most common insects of this kind
eaten by fishes. Whether the ditisci and
hydrophili, the water beetles, are ever eaten
by trout I know not, but it is most probable.
These singular animals are most usually
found in stagnant waters; fitted for flying,
swimming, diving, and walking, they are
omnivorous, and usually fly from pool to
pool in the evening. They deposit their
eggs in the water, where their larvae live,
but to undergo transmutation into the beetle
return to the land. But there is hardly any
insect that flies, including the wasp, the
hornet, the bee, and the butterfly, that does
not become at some time the prey of fishes;

216 SALMONIA.

and I have not the knowledge, or if I had,
the time, to go through the lists of these
interesting little animals ; but of the family of
one of them I must speak — the ichneumons,
that deposit their eggs in caterpillars, or the
larvae of other flies, and which feed on the
unfortunate animals on which they are
hatched, and come out of its interior when
dead, as if it had been their parent. To
enter into the philosophy of this subject, and
to study the organs and faculties of these
various insect tribes, in their functions of
respiration, nutrition, and reproduction,
would be sufficient for the labour of a life.
To know what has already been done would
demand the close and studious application
of a comprehensive mind; and to complete
this department of science in all its parts, is
probably almost above human powers, but
much might be done if enlightened persons
would follow the example of De Geer,
Reaumer, and Huber, and study minutely
the habits of particular tribes ; and it is pro-
bable that physiology might be much ad-
vanced by minutely investigating the simplest

ENTOMOLOGY. 217

forms of living beings, and that particularly
with respect to the functions of generation —
a minute study of the modifications of which
the forms of animals seem susceptible, parti-
cularly in the hymenopterous, or bee tribe,
might lead to very important results.

Poiet. — Even in a moral point of view,
I think the analogies derived from the trans-
formation of insects admit of some beautiful
applications, which have not been neglected
by pious entomologists. The three states —
of the caterpillar, larva, and butterfly — have,
since the time of the Greek poets, been ap-
plied to typify the human being — its terres-
trial form, apparent death, and ultimate
celestial destination; and it seems more ex-
traordinary that a sordid and crawling worm
should become a beautiful and active fly —
that an inhabitant of the dark and foetid
dunghill should in an instant entirely change
its form, rise into the blue air, and enjoy
the sunbeams, — than that a being, whose
pursuits here have been after an undying
name, and whose purest happiness has been
derived from the acquisition of intellectual

218 SALMONIA.

power and finite knowledge, should rise
hereafter into a state of being where immor-
tality is no longer a name, and ascend to
the source of Unbounded Power and In-
finite Wisdom.

( 219 )

NINTH DAY.

halieus — poietes — ornither
Physicus.

FISHING FOR HUCHO.

Scene— The Fall of the Traun, Upper Austria.

Time — July.

Poiet. — This is a glorious scene! And the
fall of this great and clear river, with its
accompaniments of wood, rock, and snow-
clad mountain, would alone furnish matter
for discussion and conversation for many
days. This place is quite the paradise of a
poetical angler; the only danger is, that of
satiety with regard to sport ; for these great
grayling and trout are so little used to the
artificial fly, that they take almost any thing
moving on the top of the water. You see
I have put on a salmon fly, and still the fish
rise at it, though they never can have seen

220 SALMONIA.

any thing like it before — and it is, in fact,
not like any thing in nature.

Hal. — You are right, they never have
seen any thing like it before; but, in its
motion, it is like a large fly, and this is the
season for large flies. The stone fly and
the May fly, you see, occasionally drop upon
the water, and the colour of your large fly
is not unlike that of the stone fly; but if,
instead of being here in the beginning of
July, you had visited this spot, as I once
did, in the beginning of June, you would
have found more difficulty in catching gray-
ling here, though not as much as in our
English rivers — in the Test, the Derwent,
or the Dove.

Poiet. — How could this be ?

Hal. — At this season the large flies had
not yet appeared; the small blue dun was
on the water, and I was obliged to use a fly
the same as that which suits our spring and
late autumnal fishing. The fish refused all
large flies, but took greedily small ones ;
and, as usually happens when small flies are
used, more fish escaped after being hooked

HEREDITARY INSTINCT. 221

than were taken; and these I found, the
next day, were become as sagacious as our
Dove or Test fish, and refused the artificial
fly, though they greedily took the natural

Phys. — These fish, then, have the same
habits as our English salmons and trouts ?

Hal. — The principle to which I have re-
ferred in two former conversations must be
general, yet it has seemed to me that they
lost this memory sooner than the fish of our
English rivers, where fly fishing is common.
This, however, may be fancy, yet I have
referred it to a kind of hereditary disposi-
tion, which has been formed and transmit-
ted from their progenitors.

Phys. — However strange it may appear,
I can believe this. When the early voyagers
discovered new islands, the birds upon them
were quite tame, and easily killed by sticks
and stones, being fearless of man ; but they
soon learned to know their enemy, and this
newly acquired sagacity was possessed by
their offspring, who had never seen a man.
Wild and domesticated ducks are, in fact,

222 SALMONIA.

from the same original type : it is only neces-
sary to compare them, when hatched toge-
ther under a hen, to be convinced of the
principle of the hereditary transmission of
habits, — the wild young ones instantly fly
from man, the tame ones are indifferent to
his presence.

Poiet. — No one can be less disposed than
I am to limit the powers of living nature, or
to doubt the capabilities of organized struc-
tures; but it does appear to me quite a
dream, to suppose that a fish, pricked by
the hook of the artificial fly, should transmit
a dread of it to its offspring, though he
does not even long retain the memory of it
himself.

Hal. — There are instances quite as ex-
traordinary— but I will not dwell upon them,
as I am not quite sure of the fact which we
are discussing; I have made a guess only,
and we must observe more minutely to esta-
blish it ; it may be even as you suppose — a
mere dream.

Poiet. — I shall go and look at the fall :
I am really satiated with sport; this is the

CAUSES OF VARIETY IN TROUT. 223

twentieth fish I have taken in an hour, and
it is a grayling of at least fifteen inches long ;
and there is a trout of eighteen, and several
salmon trout, which look as if they had run
from the sea.

Hal. — These salmon trout have run from
a sea, but not from a salt sea ; they are fish
of the Traun See, as it is called by the Ger-
mans, or Traun Lake, which is emptied by
this river.

Phys. — Tell us why they are so different
from the river trout, or why there should be
two species or varieties in the same water.

Hal. — Your question is a difficult one,
and it has already been referred to in a
former conversation ; but I shall repeat what
I stated before, — that qualities occasioned
by food, peculiarities of water, &c. are trans-
mitted to the offspring, and produce varieties
which retain their characters as long as they
are exposed to the same circumstances, and
only slowly lose them. Plenty of good food
gives a silvery colour and round form to
fish, and the offspring retain these .charac-
ters. Feeding on shell-fish thickens the

224 SALMONIA.

stomach, and in many generations, probably,
the gillaroo trout becomes so distinct a
variety, as to render it doubtful if it be not
a distinct species. Even these smallest
salmon trout have green backs, only black
spots, and silvery bellies; from which it is
evident that they are the offspring of lake
trout, or lacks forette , as it is called by the
Germans ; whilst the river trout, even when
4 or 5 lbs. as we see in one of these fish,
though in excellent season, have red spots.
— But why that exclamation?

Poiet. — What an immense fish ! There
he is!

Hal. — I see nothing.

Poiet. — At the edge of the pool below
the fall, I saw a fish, at least two or three
feet long, rising with great violence in the
water, as if in the pursuit of small fish ; and
at the same time I saw two or three minnows
or bleaks jump out of the water. What fish
is it? — a trout? It appeared to me too long
and too slender for a trout, and had more
the character of a pike; — yet it followed,
and did not, like a pike, make a single dart.

SALMO HUCHO. 225

Hal. — I see him: it is neither a pike nor
a trout, but a fish which I have been some
time hoping and expecting to see here, be-
low the fall — a salmo hucho, or hue/ten. I
am delighted that you have an opportunity
of seeing this curious fish, and of observing
his habits. I hope we shall catch him.

Poiet. — Catch him! we have no tackle
strong enough.

Hal. — I am surprised to hear a salmon
fisher talk so : yet he is too large to take a
fly, and must be trolled for. We must spin
a bleak for him, or small fish, as we do for
the trout of the Thames or the salmon of
the Tay. Ornither, you understand the
arrangement of this kind of tackle — look out
in my book the strongest set of spinning
hooks you can find, and supply them with a
bleak; and whilst I am changing the reel I
will give you all the information (which, I
am sorry to say, is not much) that I have
been able to collect respecting this fish from
my own observation or the experience of
others. The hucho is the most predatory
fish of the salmo genus, and is made like an

Q

226 SALMONIA.

ill-fed trout, but longer and thicker. He
has larger teeth, more spines in the pectoral
fin, a thicker skin, a silvery belly, and dark
spots only on the back and sides — I have
never seen any on the fins. The ratio of
his length to his girth is as 8 to 18, or, in
well-fed fish, as 9 to 20; and a fish, 18
inches long by 8 in girth, weighed 16215
grains. Of the spines in the fins, the anal
has 9, the caudal 20, the ventral 9, the dor-
sal 12, the pectoral 17: having numbered
the spines in many, I give this as correct.
The fleshy fin belonging to the genus is, I
think, larger in this species than in any I
have seen. Block, in his work on fishes,
states that there are black spots on all the
fins, with the exception of the anal, as a
character of this fish : and Professor Way-
ner informs me he has seen huchos with
this peculiarity ; but, as I said before, I
never saw any fish with spotted fins — yet I
have examined those of the Danube, Save,
Drave, Mur, and Izar : perhaps this is pecu-
liar to some stream in Bavaria — yet the
huchos in the collection at Munich have it

SALMO HUCHO. 227

not. The hucho is found in most rivers
tributary to the Danube — in the Save and
Laybach rivers always; yet the general opi-
nion is, that they run from the Danube twice
a year, in spring and autumn. I can answer
for their migration in spring, having caught
several in April, in streams connected with
the Save and Laybach rivers, which had
evidently come from the still dead water
into the clear running streams, for they had
the winter leech, or louse of the trout, upon
them: and I have seen them of all sizes, in
April, in the market at Laybach — from two
feet long to six inches. It is the opinion of
some naturalists, that it is only a fresh water
fish; yet this I doubt, because it is never
found beyond certain falls — as in the Traun,
the Drave, and the Save; and, there can
be no doubt, comes into these rivers from
the Danube; and probably, in its largest
state, is a fish of the Black Sea. Yet it can
winter in fresh water; and probably many
fish never return to the Black Sea, but fall
back into the warmer waters of the great
rivers, from which they migrate in spring,.

Q2

53528 SALMONIA.

to seek a cooler temperature and to deposit
their ova. The fishermen at Gratz say they
spawn in the Mur, between March and
May. In those I have caught at Laybach,
which however were small ones, the ova
were not sufficiently developed to admit of
their spawning that spring. Marsigli says,
that they spawn in the Danube in June.
You have seen how violently they pursue
their prey: I have never taken one without
fish in his stomach; yet, when small, they
will take a fly. In the Kleingraben, which
is a feeder to the Laybach river, and where
I have seen them of all sizes — from 3 lbs.
downwards — the little ones take a fly, but
the large ones are too ravenous to care about
so insignificant a morsel, and prey like the
largest trout, often hunting in company, and
chasing the small fish into the narrow and
shallow streams, and then devouring them. —
But I see your tackle is ready. As a more
experienced angler in this kind of fishing,
you will allow me to try my fortune with this
fish. I still see him feeding; but I must
keep out of sight, for he has all the timidity

TAKING A SALMO IIUCIIO. 229

peculiar to the salmo genus, and, if lie catches
sight of me, will certainly not run at the bait.

Orn. — You spin the bleak for him, I see,
as for a great trout. O ! there ! he has run
at it — and you have missed him. What a
fish! You surely were too quick, for he
sprung out of the water at the bleak.

Hal. — I was not too quick ; but he rose
just as the bleak was on the surface, and
saw me ; and now he is frightened, and gone
down into the deep water. We must retire
till we see him feeding again, which will be,
I hope, in some minutes, for his violence
shows he is not yet satisfied.

Poiet. — I think I saw him moving in
another part of the pool : it is now ten
minutes since we saw him last.

Hal. — You are right; he is again on the
feed, and in a place where we have a bet-
ter chance of hooking him, as the water is
deeper and in the shade. He has run again
at the bleak, but only as it shone on the
surface — but he is not frightened. Ah! he
has taken it, and is floundering and strug-
gling! He is a powerful fish.

230

SALMONIA.

Orn. — He fights well, and runs towards
the side where the rock is.

Hal. — Take the net and frighten him
from that place, which is the only one where
there is danger of losing him. He is clear
now, and begins to tire, and in a few minutes
more he will be exhausted. — Now land
him.

Poiet. — A noble fish ! But how like a
trout — exactly like a sea trout in whiteness,
and I think in spots.

SALMO HUCHO.

Hal. — He is much narrower, or less
broad, as you would immediately discover if
you had a sea trout here. But now we must

SALMO HUCHO. 2oi

try another pool, or the tail of this ; that
fish was not alone, and at the moment he
took the bait, I think I saw the water move
from the stir of another fish. Take your rod
and fit your own tackle, Ornither ; half the
glory of catching this fish is yours, as you
prepared the hooks. I see you are in earn-
est ; the blood mounts in your face. Oh !
oh! Ornither! you have pulled with too
much violence, and broken your tackle.
Alas! alas! the fish you hooked was the
consort of mine : he will not take again.

Ojin. — The gut was bad, for I do not
think I struck too violently. What a loss !
How hard, to let the first fish of the kind I
ever angled for escape me !

Hal. — There are probably more: try
again.

Orn. — Behold! the loss was more owing
to the tackle than to my ardour; for the
two end hooks only are gone, and you may
see the gut worn.

Hal. — The thing is done, and is not
worth comment. If you can, let the next
fish that rises hook himself. When we are

232 SALMONIA.

ardent, we are bad judges of the effort we
make; and an angler, who could be cool
with a new species of salmo, I should not
envy. Now all is right again: try that pool.
There is a fish — ay! and another, that runs
at your bait; but they are small ones, not
much more than twice as large as the bleak ;
yet they show their spirit, and though they
cannot swallow it, they have torn it. Put
on another bleak. There! you have another
run.

Orn. — Ay, it is a small fish, not much
more than a foot long; yet he fights well.

Hal. — You have him, and I will land him.
I do not think such a fish a bad initiation
into this kind of sport. He does not agitate
so much as a larger one, and yet gratifies
curiosity. There, we have him. A very
beautiful fish ; yet he has the leech, or louse,
though his belly is quite white.

Orn. — This fish is so like a trout, that,
had I caught him when alone, I should
hardly have remarked his peculiarities ; and
I am not convinced that it is not a variety of
the common trout, altered, in many genera-

salmo liucno. c23o

tions, by the predatory habits of his ances-
tors.

Hal. — How far the principle of change
of character and transmission of such cha-
racter to the offspring will apply, I shall
not attempt to determine, and whether all
the varieties of the salmo with teeth in their
mouth may not have been produced from
one original ; yet this fish is now as distinct
from the trout as the char or the umbla;
and in Europe, it exists only below great
falls in rivers connected with the Danube,
and is never found in rivers of the same dis-
tricts connected with the Rhine, Elbe, or
which empty themselves into the Mediterra-
nean; though trout are common in all these
streams, and salmon and sea trout in those
connected with the ocean. According to
the descriptions of Pallas, it occurs in the
rivers of Siberia, and probably exists in those
that run into the Caspian ; and it is remark-
able, that it is not found where the eel is
usual — at least this applies to all the tribu-
tary streams of the Danube, and, it is said,

234 SALMONIA.

to the rivers of Siberia. Wherever I have
seen it, there have been always coarse fish —
as chub, white fish, bleak, &c. and rivers
containing such fish are its natural haunts,
for it requires abundance of food, and serves
to convert these indifferent poor fish into a
better kind of nourishment for man. We
will now examine the interior of these fish.
You see the stomach is larger than that of a
trout, and both stomachs are full of small
fish. In the larger one there is a chub, a
grayling, a bleak, and two or three small
carp. -The skin you see is thick; the scales
are smaller than those of a trout; it has no
teeth on the palate, and the pectoral fin has
four spines more, which, I think, enables it
to turn with more rapidity. You will find
at dinner, that fried, or roasted, he is good
fish. His flesh is white, but not devoid of
curd ; and though rather softer than that of
a trout, I have never observed in, it that
muddiness, or peculiar flavour, which some-
times occurs in trout, even in perfect season.
Orn. — I am so much pleased with my

SALMO IIUCHO. 235

good fortune in catching this fish, that I
shall try all day to-morrow with the bait, for
more fish of the same kind.

Hal. — You may do so; but many of these
fish cannot be caught; they migrate gene-
rally when the water is foul, and except in
the spring and early summer, do not so
readily run at the bait. I was once nearly
a month seeking for one in rivers in which
they are found, between the end of June
and that of July, without being able to suc-
ceed in even seeing one alive; and as far as
my information goes, the two places where
there is most probability of taking them, is
at Laybach and Ratisbon, in the tributary
streams to the Sava, and in the Danube;
and the best time in the first of these situa-
tions, is in March and April, and in the se-
cond, in May. I am told, likewise, that the
Izar, which runs by Munich, is a stream
where these fish may be caught, when the
water is clear: but I have never fished in
this stream — it having been foul, either from
rain, or the melting of the snows, whenever
I have been at Munich; but I have seen in

236 SALMONIA.

the fish-market at Munich, very large
huchos. And late in the autumn, or in early
spring, this river must be an interesting one
to fish in, as the schill, or perca lucio <perca,
and three other species of perca are found
in it — the zingil, the apron, and the perca
scharatz — all fish of prey, and excellent food.
I have eaten them, but never taken them;
they are rare in European rivers, though
not, like the hucho, peculiar to the tributary
streams of the Danube. The schill is found
likewise in the Sprey and in the Hungarian
lakes; and according to Block, the zingil in
the Rhone.

Poiet. — I should like extremely to fish in
the Izar: it is, I think, a new kind of plea-
sure to take a new kind of fish, even though
it is not unknown to Natural Historians.
But the most exquisite kind of angling in
my opinion would be that of angling in a
river never fished in by Europeans before ;
and I can scarcely imagine sport of a higher
kind than that which involves a triple source
of pleasure — that of catching a fish, of pro-
curing good food for the table, and of making

ANGLING.

23:

a discovery in Natural History, at the same
time. Sir Joseph Banks, who was always a
great amateur of angling, had often this kind
of pleasure. And to Captain Franklin and
Dr. Richardson, in their expedition to the
Arctic Ocean, when they were almost starv-
ing, what a delightful circumstance it must
have been, to have taken with a fly those
large grayling of a new species, equally
beautiful in their appearance, and good for
the table !

Hal. — When a boy, I have felt an interest
in sea fishing, for this reason — that there was
a variety of fish ; but the want of skill in the
amusement — sinking a bait with a lead and
pulling up a fish by main force, soon made
me tired of it ; and I have rarely fished in
the sea since I have been a fly fisher, and
then only with a reel and fine tackle from
the rocks, which is at least as interesting an
amusement as that of the Cockney fishermen
who fish for roach and dace in the Thames,
which I have tried twice in my life, but shall
never try again.

Phys. — You are severe on Cockney fish-

£38 SALMONIA.

ermen, and, I suppose, would apply to them

Only, the observation of Dr. Johnson, which
on a former occasion you would not allow to
be just: " Angling is an amusement with a
stick and a string; a worm at one end, and
a tool at the other." And to yourself you
would apply it with this change: " a fly at
one end, and a philosopher at the other. "
Yet the pleasure of the Cockney Angler
appears to me of much the same kind, and
perhaps more continuous than yours; and
he has the happiness of constant occupation
and perpetual pursuit in as high a degree as
you have; and if we were to look at the real
foundations of your pleasure, we should find
them like most of the foundations of human
happiness — vanity or folly. I shall never
forget the impression made upon me some
years ago, when 1 was standing on the pier
at Donegal, watching the flowing of the tide,
I saw a lame boy of fourteen or fifteen years
old, very slightly clad, that some persons
were attempting to stop in his progress along
the pier, but he resisted them with his
crutches, and halting along, threw himself

AMUSEMENTS. 239

from an elevation of five or six feet, with his
crutches, and a little parcel of wooden boats
that he carried under his arm, on the sand
of the beach. He had to scramble or halt
at least 100 yards, over hard rocks, before
he reached the water, and he several times
fell down and cut his naked limbs on the
bare stones. Being in the water he seemed
in an extasy, and immediately put his boats
in sailing order and was perfectly inattentive
to the counsel and warning of the spectators,
who shouted to him that he would be
drowned. His whole attention was absorbed
by his boats. He had formed an idea that
one should outsail the others, and when this
boat was foremost he was in delight; when
any one of the others got beyond it he
howled with grief; and once I saw him
throw his crutch at one of the unfavoured
boats. The tide came in rapidly — he lost
his crutches, and would have been drowned
but for the care of some of the spectators:
but he was wholly inattentive to any thing-
save his boats. He is said to be quite in-
sane and perfectly ungovernable, and will

240 SALMONIA.

not live in a house, nor wear any clothes, and
his whole life is spent in this one business —
making and managing a fleet of wooden
boats, of which he is sole admiral. How
near this mad youth is to a genius, a hero,
or to an angler, who injures his health and
risks his life by going into the water as
high as his middle, in the hope of catching
a fish which he sees rise, though he already
has a pannier full.

Hal. — Or a statesman, working by all
means, fair and foul, to obtain a blue riband ;
or a fox-hunter, risking his neck to see
the hounds destroy an animal which he pre-
serves to be destroyed, and which is good
for nothing. Or an aged licentious volup-
tuary, using all the powers of a high and
cultivated intellect to destroy the innocence
of a beautiful virgin — for a transient gratifi-
cation to render her miserable, and by
making a flaw in an inestimable and brilliant
gem, utterly to destroy its value.

Phys. — You might go on and give almost
all the objects of pursuit of rational beings,
as they are called. But to return to your

WHALES. 241

favourite pursuit, I wonder that with your
passion for the amusement of angling, you
have never made an expedition in one of
our whalers — with Captain Scoresby for in-
stance : you would then have engaged in a
sport of a new kind.

Hal. — I should like much to see a whale
taken, but I do not think the sight worth
the dangers and privations of such a voyage.
It would only be an amusing sight and not
an enterprize, unless indeed you yourself
employed the harpoon ; and after all it must
be a tedious operation, that of watching the
sinking and rising of a fish obedient to a
natural instinct, which in this instance is
the cause of his death.

Poiet. — How?

Hal. — The whale, having no air bladder,
can sink to the lowest depths of the ocean,
and mistaking the harpoon for the teeth of
a sword fish or a shark, he instantly de-
scends, this being his manner of freeing
himself from these enemies, who cannot
bear the pressure of a deep ocean, and from
ascending and descending in small space, lie

R

242 SALMONIA.

puts himself in the power of the whaler;
whereas, if he knew his force, and was to
swim on the surface in a straight line, he
would easily break or destroy the machinery
by which he is arrested, as easily as a salmon
breaks the single gut of a fisher when his
reel is entangled.

Poiet. — My amusement in such a voyage
would be to look for the kraken and the sea
snake.

Hal. — You have a vivid imagination, and
might see them.

Poiet. — Then you do not believe in the
existence of these wonderful animals ?

Hal. — No more than I do in that of the
merman, or mermaid.

Poiet. — Yet we have histories, which
seem authentic, of the appearance of these
monsters, and there are not wanting persons
who assert that they have seen the mermaid
even in these islands.

Hal. — I disbelieve the authenticity of
these stories. I do not mean to deny the
existence of large marine animals having
analogies to the serpent, the conger we know

SEA SERPENT — KRAKEN. 243

is such an animal: I have seen one nearly
ten feet long, and there may be longer ones,
but such animals do not come to the surface.
The only sea snake which has been examined
by naturalists, turned out to be a putrid spe-
cies of shark — the squalus maximus. Yet
all the newspapers gave accounts of this as
a real animal, and endowed it with feet,
which do not belong to serpents. And the
sea snakes seen by American and Norwe-
gian Captains, have, I think, generally been
a company of porpoises, the rising and sink-
ing of which in lines would give somewhat
the appearance of the coils of a snake. The
kraken, or island fish, is still more imaginary.
I have myself seen immense numbers of
enormous urticce marines, or blubbers, in the
north seas, and in some of the Norwegian
fiords, or inland bays, and often these beau-
tiful animals give colour to the water; but
it is exceedingly improbable that an animal
of this genus should ever be of the size, even
of the whale ; its soft materials are little fitted
for locomotion, and such an animal would
be easily destroyed by every kind of fish.

r2

244 SALM0NIA.

Hands and a finny tail are entirely contrary
to the analogy of nature, and I disbelieve
the mermaid upon philosophical principles.
The dugong and manatee are the only ani-
mals combining the functions of the mam-
malia with some of the characters of fishes,
that can be imagined even as a link in this
part of the order of nature. Many of these
stories have been founded upon the long-
haired seal seen at a distance, and others on
the appearance of the common seal under
particular circumstances of light and shade,
and some on still more singular circum-
stances. A worthy baronet, remarkable for
his benevolent views and active spirit, has
propagated a story of this kind, and he
seems to claim for his native country the
honour of possessing this extraordinary
animal; but the mermaid of Caithness was
certainly a gentleman, who happened to be
travelling on that wild shore, and who was
seen bathing by some young ladies at so
great a distance, that not only genus but
gender was mistaken. I am acquainted with
him, and have had the story from his own

MERMAID. 245

mouth. He is a young man, fond of geolo-
gical pursuits, and one day in the middle of
August, having fatigued and heated himself
by climbing a rock to examine a particular
appearance of granite, gave his clothes to
his Highland guide, who was taking care of
his poney and descended to the sea. The
sun was just setting, and he amused himself
for some time by swimming from rock to
rock, and having undipped hair and no cap,
he sometimes threw aside his locks, and
wrung the water from them on the rocks.
He happened the year after to be at Har-
rowgate, and was sitting at table with two
young ladies from Caithness, who were re-
lating to a wondering audience the story of
the mermaid they had seen, which had
already been published in the newspapers :
they described her as she usually is described
by poets, as a beautiful animal, with remark-
ably fair skin, and long green hair. The
young gentleman took the liberty, as most
of the rest of the company did, to put a few
questions to the elder of the two ladies —
such as, on what day and precisely where

246 SALMONIA.

this singular phenomenon had appeared.
She had noted down, not merely the day,
but the hour and minute, and produced a
map of the place. Our bather referred to
his journal, and showed that a human ani-
mal was swimming in the very spot at that
very time, who had some of the characters
ascribed to the mermaid, but who laid no
claim to others, particularly the green hair
and fishes tail; but being rather sallow in
the face, was glad to have such testimony to
the colour of his body beneath his garments.
Poiet. — But I do not understand upon
what philosophical principles you deny the
existence of the mermaid. We are not
necessarily acquainted with all the animals
that inhabit the bottom of the sea; and I
cannot help thinking there must have been
some foundation for the fable of the Tritons
and Nereids.

Hal. — Ay; and of the ocean divinities,
Neptune and Amphitrite!

Poiet. — Now I think you are prejudiced.

Hal. — I remember the worthy Baronet,

whom I just now mentioned, on some one

MERMAID. 247

praising the late Sir Joseph Banks very
highly, said, " Sir Joseph was an excellent
man — but he had his prejudices." What
were they? said my friend. " Why, he
did not believe in the mermaid." Pray still
consider me as the Baronet did Sir Joseph
— prejudiced on this subject.

Orn. — But give us some reasons for the
impossibility of the existence of this animal.

Hal. — Nay, I did not say impossibility ;
I am too much of the school of Izaac Walton
to talk of impossibility. It doubtless might
please God to make a mermaid ; but I do
not believe God ever did make a mermaid.

Orn. — And why?

Hal. — Because wisdom and order are
found in all his works, and the parts of ani-
mals are always in harmony with each other,
and always adapted to certain ends consist-
ent with the analogy of nature ; and a human
head, human hands, and human mammae,
are wholly inconsistent with a fish's tail.
The human head is adapted for an erect
posture, and in such a posture an animal
with a fish's tail could not swim : and a

248 SALMONIA.

creature with lungs must be on the surface
several times in a clay — and the sea is an
inconvenient breathing place ; and hands
are instruments of manufacture — and the
depths of the ocean are little fitted for fabri-
cating that mirror which our old prints gave
to the mermaid. Such an animal, if created,
could not long exist; and, with scarce any
locomotive powers, would be the prey of
other fishes formed in a manner more suited
to their element. I have seen a most ab-
surd fabrication of a mermaid exposed as a
show in London, said to have been found
in the Chinese seas, and bought for a large
sum of money. The head and bust, of two
different apes, were fastened to the lower
part of a kipper salmon, which had the
fleshy fin, and all the distinct characters, of
the salmo salar.

Orn. — And yet there were people who
believed this to be a real animal.

Hal. — It was insisted on to prove the
truth of the Caithness story. But what is
there which people will not believe?

Poiet. — In listening to your conversation

MERMAID.

249

we have forgotten our angling, and have lost
some moments of fine cloudy weather.

Hal. — I thought you were tired of catch-
ing trouts and graylings, and I therefore did
not urge you to continue your fly fishing;
and this part of the river does not contain
so many grayling as the pools above — but
there are good trout, and it is possible there
may be huchos. Let me recommend to you
to put on minnow tackle — that tackle with
the fine small hooks ; and, as we have min-
nows and bleaks, you may perhaps hook
trout, or even huchos ; and in half an hour
our fish dinner at the inn will be ready. I
shall return there, to see that all is right,
and shall expect you there when you have
finished your fishing.

[They all meet in the dining-room of the
inn.]

Hal.— Well, what sort of sport have you
had since I left you?

Poiet. — We have each caught a trout
and two large chubs, and have had two or

250 SALMONIA.

three runs besides — but we saw no huchos ;
and though several large grayling rose in
one of the streams, and we tried to catch
them by spinning the minnow in every pos-
sible way, yet they took no notice of our
bait.

Hal. — This is usually the case. I have
heard of anglers who have taken grayling
with minnows, but this is a rare occurrence,
and never happened to me. Your dinner,
I dare say, is now ready ; and you know it
is a dinner entirely of the genus salmo^ with
vegetables and fruit. You have hucho from
the Traun, and char from Aussee, and trout
from the Traun See, that were brought alive
to the inn, and have only just been killed
and crimped, and are now boiling in salt and
water ; and you have likewise grayling and
laverets from the Traun See, which are
equally fresh, and which will be fried.

Phys. — I think, in this part of the conti-
nent, the art of carrying and keeping fish is
better understood than in England. Every
inn has a box containing grayling, trout,
carp, or char, into which water from a spring

AUSTRIAN METHOD 01 CONVEYING I isn. $51

runs; and no one thinks of carrying ok tend*
ing dead fish for a dinner. A fish hand
full of cool water, which is replenished at
every fresh source amongst thei e mountains,
is carried on the shoulders of the fisherman.
And the fish, when confined in wells, are
fed with bullock's liver, cut into fine piec<
o that they are often in better es on in
the tank or stew than when they were taken.
I have leen trout, grayling, and char even*
feed voraciou-.lv, and take their- food almost
from the hand. These methods of carrying
and preserving fish have, 1 believe, been
adopted from the mens & establishments.

At Admondt, in Styria, attached to the

magnificent monastery of that name* are

abundant ponds and le/isoir. for every

gpeciei of fresh water fish ; and the char,
grayling and trout are pre erved in dif-
ferent waters — covered, enclosed, and under

lock and key.

Poiet, — ] admire in this country not only
the mode of preserving, carrying, and dre
fog fidi, hut I am delimited, generally, prith
the habiti of life of the peasants, and with

252 SALMONIA.

their manners. It is a country in which I
should like to live ; the scenery is so beauti-
ful, the people so amiable and good-natured,
and their attentions to strangers so marked
by courtesy and disinterestedness.

Phys. — They appear to me very amiable
and good ; but all classes seem little in-
-structed.

Poiet. — There are few philosophers
amongst them, certainly; but they appear
very happy, and

Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.

We have neither seen nor heard of any in-
stances of crime since we have been here.
They fear their God, love their sovereign,
are obedient to the laws, and seem perfectly
contented. I know you would contrast
them with the active and educated peasantry
of the manufacturing districts of England;
but I believe they are much happier, and I
am sure they are generally better.

Phys. — I doubt this : the sphere of enjoy-
ment, as well as of benevolence, is enlarged
by education.

EDUCATION. 253

Poiet. — I am sorry to say I think the
system carried too far in England. God
forbid that any useful light should be extin-
guished ! Let persons who wish for educa-
tion receive it; but it appears to me that,
in the great cities in England, it is, as it
were, forced upon the population ; and that
sciences, which the lower classes can only
very superficially acquire, are presented to
them ; in consequence of which they often
become idle and conceited, and above their
usual laborious occupations. The unripe
fruit of the tree of knowledge is, I believe,
always bitter or sour; and scepticism and
discontent — sickness of the mind — are often
the results of devouring it.

Hal. — Surely you cannot have a more
religious, moral, or more improved popula-
tion than that of Scotland ?

Poiet. — Precisely so. In Scotland, edu-
cation is not forced upon the people — it is
sought for, and it is connected with their
forms of faith, acquired in the bosoms of
their families, and generally pursued. with a
distinct object of prudence or interest : nor

254 SALMONIA.

is that kind of education wanting in this
country.

Phys. — Where a book is rarely seen, a
newspaper never.

Poiet. — Pardon me — there is not a cot-
tage without a prayer book; and I am not
sorry that these innocent and happy men
are not made active and tumultuous subjects
of King Press, whom I consider as the
most capricious, depraved and unprincipled
tyrant that ever existed in England. De-
praved— for it is to be bought by great
wealth; capricious — because it sometimes
follows, and sometimes forms, the voice of
the lowest mob ; and unprincipled — because,
when its interests are concerned, it sets at
defiance private feeling and private charac-
ter, and neither regards their virtue, dignity,
or purity.

Hal. — My friends, you are growing warm.
I know you differ essentially on this subject;
but surely you will allow that the full liberty
of the press, even though it sometimes dege-
nerates into licentiousness, and though it
may sometimes be improperly used by the

CHAR. 255

influence of wealth, power, or private favour,
is yet highly advantageous, and even essen-
tial to the existence of a free country ; and,
useful as it may be to the population, it is
still more useful to the government, to
whom, as expressing the voice of the people,
though not always vox Dei, it may be re-
garded as oracular or prophetic. — But let
us change our conversation, which is neither
in time nor place.

1*11 vs. — The char* is a most beautiful
and excellent fish, and is, of course;, a fish
of prey. Is he not an object of spoil to the
angle)- 1

Hal. — They generally haunt deep cool
lakes, and are seldom found at the surface
till late in the autumn. When they are at
the surface they will, however, take either
fly or minnow. I have known some caughl
in both these ways ; and have myself taken
a char, even in summer, in one of tho e
beautiful, small, deep lakes in the Upper
Tyrol, near Nazereit; but it was where a

■ Sailing of the German

256 SALMONIA.

cool stream entered from the mountain; and
the fish did not rise, but swallowed the arti-
ficial fly under water. I have fished for
them in many lakes, without success, both
in England and Scotland, and also amongst
the Alps ; and I am told the only sure way
of taking them is by sinking a line with a
bullet, and a hook having a live minnow
attached to it, in the deep water which they
usually haunt; and in this way, likewise, I
have no doubt the umbla, or ombre cheva-
lier, might be taken.

Poiet. — I have never happened to see
this fish.

Hal. — It is very like a char in form, but
has no spots, and a white and silvery belly.
On the table, its flesh cuts white or cream
colour, and it is exceedingly like char in
flavour.

Poiet. — Is it found in this country ?

Hal. — From some descriptions I have
heard of certain species of the salmo found
in the Maun See, Traun See, and Leopold-
stadt See, I think it is. Block says, that it
is peculiar to the lakes of Geneva and Neuf-

UMBLA — LAVERET. 257

chatel; but this, I am sure, is not true; I
have myself eaten them from the lake of
Bourget, in Savoy; and I dare say they
exist in other deep waters of a like character
amongst the Alps. It is a fish closely allied
to the char, and congenerous both in form
and habits.

Phys. — You mentioned, among the fish
for dinner, the laveret: I never heard of this
fish before.

Hal. — It is a fish known in England by
the name of shelley, or fresh water herring;
in Wales by that of guineard; in Ireland
by that of pollan; and in Scotland by that
of vengis. In colour it is most like a gray-
ling, but with broader and larger scales : it
is common in the large lakes of most Alpine
countries, and is known at Geneva by the
name oiferra; and I believe that the salmo
ceruleiis, or wartmaune of Block, or the
gang fish, of the lake of Constance, from a
comparison that I made of it with \heferra,
is a variety of the same fish. It sometimes is
as large as 2 lbs.; and when quite fre^h, and

s

258 SALMONIA.

well fried or broiled, is an exceedingly good
fish, and carves like a grayling.

Poiet. — Is this fish ever taken with the
line?

Hal. — I believe only with nets. It feeds
on vegetables; and in the stomachs of those
I have opened, I have never found either
flies or small fishes.

AT TABLE.

Phys. — Your fish are all excellent, but I
prefer the char, which I think is even better
than the best fresh salmon I ever tasted.

Hal. — At Lintz, on the Danube, I could
have given you a fish dinner of a different
description, which you might have liked as
a variety. The four kinds of perch, the
spiegil carpfen, and the siluris giants; all
good fish, and which I am sorry we have
not in England, where I doubt not they
might be easily naturalized, and where they
would form an admirable addition to the
table in inland counties. Since England

NATURALIZATION OF FISH. 259

has become Protestant, the cultivation of
fresh water fish has been much neglected.
The burbot, or lotte, which already exists
in some of the streams tributary to the
Trent, and which is a most admirable fish,
might be diffused without much difficulty;
and nothing could be more easy than to
naturalize the spiegil carpfen and siluris ;
and I see no reason why the perca lucio
perca and zingil should not succeed in some
of our clear lakes and ponds, which abound
in coarse fish. The new Zoological Society,
I hope, will attempt something of this kind ;
and it will be a better object than intro-
ducing birds and beasts of prey — though I
have no objection to any sources of rational
amusement or philosophical curiosity. But
the time for our parting is almost arrived. —
Let us drink a glass each of this old wine
of the Danube to our next happy meeting,
and go and take a last look at the Fall of
Traun whilst our carriages are preparing.

[The?/ walk to the rock above tlieJFall of
the TraunJ\

s2 .

260 SALMONIA.

Hal. — See, the cataract is now in great
beauty ; the river above is coloured by the
setting sun, and the glow of the rosy light
on the upper stream is beautifully and won-
derfully contrasted with the tints of the
cataract below. Have you ever seen any
thing so fine?

Poiet. — The lights are beautiful ; but I
have certainly seen a finer combination of
features in the Fall of the Velino, at Terni,
though that water is not clear; but, even
with this defect, it is certainly the most per-
fect of European falls. This Cascade of
the Traun, though not so elevated as that
of Terni, and not so large as that of Schaff-
hausen, yet, from its perfect clearness and
the harmony of the surrounding objects,
ranks high, as to picturesque effect, amongst
the waterfalls of Europe ; and the wonder-
ful transparency of its pale-green water gives
it a peculiar charm in my eyes, enhanced as
it is now by the light of the glowing western
sky; and the tints of the quadrant iris on
its spray are not brighter than those of its
streams and foam.

THE TRAUN. 261

Orn.— We have now followed this water
at least thirty miles, and wherever we have
seen it, it has always displayed the same
characters of clearness and rapidity — of
green stream and white foam ; and we have
traced it from the snowy mountains of Styria
to the plains of Upper Austria, where it
serves to purify the darker Danube. How
has it preserved its transparency, though so
many of its tributary streams have been foul,
either from the thunder storm or from the
sudden melting of snows ?

Hal.— The three small lakes and the two
larger ones, which are in fact its reservoirs
are the cause of this. The Grundel see
furnishes its principal stream, and this lake
is fed by two others — Cammer see and
Langen see ; and the tributary streams,
which unite at Aussee, from Alten Aussee
and Oden see, though one is blue and the
other is yellow, yet combine to give a tint
which is nearly the same as that from the
stream of the Grundel see, and which the
river retains throughout its course. Yet I
have seen even this river very foul, but only

262 SALMONIA.

in a part of its course, below Ischel. I was
once at that place, when the thunder storm
of a night having washed the dust of the
roads into the river, it was extremely turbid
from Ischel to the Traun see. It rendered
the upper part of this large lake coloured;
but notwithstanding this, the river came
from the lower part of it perfectly clear,
and I caught fish in it there with a fly,
which at its entrance into the lake was quite
impossible.

Poiet. — You, Halieus, must certainly
have considered the causes which produce
the colours of waters. The streams of our
own island are of a very different colour from
these mountain rivers, and why should the
same element or substance assume such a
variety of tints.

Hal. — I certainly have often thought
upon the subject, and I have made some
observations and one experiment in relation
to it, I will give you my opinion, with
pleasure, and as far as I know, they have
not been brought forward in any of the
works on the properties of water, or on its

COLOUR OF WATER.

263

consideration as a chemical element. The
purest water with which we are acquainted,
is undoubtedly that which falls from the
atmosphere. Having touched air alone, it
can contain nothing but what it gains from
the atmosphere, and it is distilled without
the chance of those impurities which may
exist in the vessels used in an artificial ope-
ration. We cannot well examine the water
precipitated from the atmosphere as rain
without collecting it in vessels, and all artifi-
cial contact gives more or less of contamina-
tion ; but in snow, melted by the sun beams,
that has fallen on glaciers, themselves formed
from frozen snow, water may be regarded as
in its state of greatest purity. Congelation
expels both salts and air from water, whether
existing below, or formed in the atmosphere ;
and in the high and uninhabited regions of
glaciers, there can scarcely be any substances
to contaminate — removed from animal and
vegetable life, they are even above the mine-
ral kingdom; and though there are instances
in which the rudest kind of vegetation (forms
of the fungus or mucor kind) is even found

264 SALMONIA.

upon snows, yet this is a rare occurrence;
and red snow, which is occasioned by it, is
an extraordinary and not a common pheno-
menon towards the pole, and on the highest
mountains of the globe. Having examined
the water formed from melted snows on gla-
ciers in different parts of the Alps, and
having always found it of the same quality,
I shall consider it as pure water, and describe
its characters. Its colour, when it has any
depth, or when a mass of it is seen through,
is bright blue; and, according to its greater
or less depth of substance, it has more or
less of this colour: as its insipidity and its
other physical qualities are not at this mo-
ment objects of your inquiry, I shall not
dwell upon them. In general in examining
lakes and masses of water in high mountains,
their colour is of the same bright azure.
And Captain Parry states, that the water on
the Polar ice has the same beautiful tint.
When vegetables grow in lakes, the colour
becomes nearer sea green, and as the quan-
tity of impregnation from their decay in-
creases— greener, yellowish green, and at

COLOUR OF WATER. 265

length, when the vegetable extract is large
in quantity — as in countries where peat is
found — yellow, and even brown. To men-
tion instances, the Lake of Geneva, fed from
sources (particularly the higher Rhone,)
formed from melting snow, is blue ; and the
Rhone pours from it, dyed of the deepest
azure, and retains partially this colour till it
is joined by the Soane, which gives to it a
greener hue. The Lake of Morat, on the
contrary, which is fed from a lower country,
and from less pure sources, is grass green.
And there is an illustrative instance in some
small lakes fed from the same source, in the
road from Inspruck to Stutgard, which I
observed in 1815, (as well as I recollect,)
between Nazareit and Reiti. The highest
lake fed by melted snows, in March, when I
saw it, was bright blue. It discharged itself
by a small stream into another, into which a
number of large pines had been blown by a
winter storm ; or fallen from some other
cause : in this lake its colour was blue green.
In a third lake, in which there were not only
pines and their branches, but likewise other

266 SALMONIA.

decaying vegetable matter, it had a tint of
faded grass green; and these changes had
occurred in a space not much more than a
mile in length. These observations I made
in 1815; on returning to the same spot
twelve years after, in August and Septem-
ber, I found the character of the lakes en-
tirely changed. The pine wood washed into
the second lake had disappeared; a large
quantity of stones and gravel washed down
by torrents, or detached by an avalanche,
supplied their place : there was no percepti-
ble difference of tint in the two upper lakes,
but the lower one, where there was still
some vegetable matter, seemed to possess a
greener hue. The same principle will apply
to the Scotch and Irish rivers, which, when
they rise or issue from pure rocky sources,
are blue, or bluish green; and when fed
from peat bogs, or alluvial countries, yellow,
or amber-coloured, or brown — even after
they have deposited a part of their impuri-
ties in great lakes. Sometimes, though
rarely, mineral impregnations give colour to
water : small streams are sometimes green or

COLOUR OF THE OCEAN. 267

yellow from ferruginous depositions. Cal-
careous matters seldom affect their colour,
but often their transparency, when deposited,
as is the case with the Velino at Terni, and
the Anio at Tivoli; but I doubt if pure sa-
line matters, which are in themselves white,
ever change the tint of water.

Orn. — On what then does the tint of the
ocean depend, which has itself given name
to a colour?

Hal. — I think probably on vegetable mat-
ter, and perhaps, partially, on two elementary
principles, iodine and brome, which it cer-
tainly contains, though these are possibly the
results of decayed marine vegetables. These
give a yellow tint when dissolved in minute
portions in water, and this mixed with the
blue of pure water would occasion sea green.
I made many years ago, being on the Mer
de Glace, an experiment on this subject,
I threw a small quantity of iodine, a sub-
stance then recently discovered, into one of
those deep blue basins of water which are
so frequent on that glacier; and diffusing it
as it dissolved with a stick, I saw the water

268 SALMONIA.

change first to sea green in colour, then to
grass green, and lastly to yellowish green: I
do not however, give this as a proof, but
only as a fact favourable to my conjecture.

Poiet. — It appears to me to confirm your
view of the subject, that snow and ice, which
are merely pure chrystalized water, are
always blue when seen by transmitted light.
I have often admired the deep azure in cre-
vices in masses of snow in severe winters,
and the same colour in the glaciers of Swit-
zerland, particularly at the arch where the
Arve issues, in the Valley of Chamouni.
We thank you for your illustration.

Hal. — In return, I ask you for some fur-
ther remarks on this grand waterfall. You
said just now, you preferred the fall of the
Velino for picturesque effect to any other
waterfall you have seen ; yet it is a small
river compared even with the Traun, and
nothing compared with the Gotha, the
Rhine, or above all, the Glommen.

Poiet. — Size is merely comparative : I
prefer the fall of the Velino, because its
parts are in harmony. It displays all the

WATERFALLS. 269

force and power of the element, in its rapid
and precipitous descent, and you feel that
even man would be nothing in its waves, and
would be dashed to pieces by its force. The
whole scene is embraced at once by the eye,
and the effect is almost as sublime as that of
the Glommen, where the river is at least
one hundred times as large; for the Glom-
men falls, as it were, from a whole valley
upon a mountain of granite, and unless
where you see the giant pines of Norway,
fifty or sixty feet in height, carried down by
it and swimming in its whirlpools like straws,
you have no idea of its magnitude and power:
yet still, I think, considering it in all its rela-
tions, this is the most awful fall of water I
have seen, as that of Velino is the most per-
fect and beautiful. I am not sure that I
ought not to place the fall of the Gotha
above that of the Rhine, both for variety of
effect and beauty; and, I think, the river is
quite as large, and the colour of the water
quite as beautiful.

Hal. — But our horses are ready, and the
time of separation arrives. I trust we shall

270 SALMONIA.

all have a happy meeting in England in the
winter. I have made you idlers at home
and abroad, but I hope to some purpose;
and, I trust, you will confess the time be-
stowed upon angling has not been thrown
away. The most important principle per-
haps in life is to have a pursuit — a useful
one if possible, and at all events an innocent
one. And the scenes you have enjoyed —
the contemplations to which they have led,
and the exercise in which we have indulged,
have, I am sure, been very salutary to the
body, and, I hope, to the mind. I have
always found a peculiar effect from this kind
of life ; it has appeared to bring me back to
early times and feelings, and to create again
the hopes and happiness of youthful days.

Phys. — I felt something like what you
described, and were I convinced that in the
cultivation of the amusement, these feelings
would increase, I would devote myself to it
with passion; but, I fear, in my case this is
impossible. Ah ! could I recover any thing
like that freshness of mind which I possessed
at twenty-five, and which, like the dew of

REFLECTIONS. 271

the morning, covered all objects and nou-
rished all things that grew, and in which
they were more beautiful even than in sun-
shine,— what would I not give! — All that I
have gained in an active and not unprofit-
able life. How well I remember that de-
lightful season, when full of power I sought
for power in others ; and power was sympa-
thy, and sympathy power. When every
voice seemed one of praise and love; when
every flower had the bloom and odour of
the rose, and every spray or plant seemed
either the poet's laurel, or the civic oak —
which appeared to offer themselves to my
ready and willing hands. But, alas! this
cannot be; and even you cannot have two
springs in life — though I have no doubt you
have fishing days, in which the feelings of
youth return, and that your autumn has a
more vernal character than mine.

Poiet. — I do not think Halieus had ever
any season except a perpetual and gentle
spring; for the tones of his mind have been
always so quiet, it has been so little scorched
by sunshine, and so little shaken by winds,

272 SALMONIA.

that, I think, it may be compared to that
sempivernal climate fabled of the Hespe-
rides, where the same trees produced at
once buds, leaves, blossoms, and fruits.

Hal. — Nay, my friends! spare me a little,
spare my grey hairs. I have not perhaps
abused my youth as much as some of my
friends, but all things that you have known,
I have known; and if I have not been so
much scorched by the passions from which
so many of my acquaintances have suffered,
I owe it rather to the constant employment
of a laborious profession, and to the exer-
tions called for by the hopes, wants, and
wishes of a rising family, than to any merits
of my own, either moral or constitutional.
For my health, I may thank my ancestors,
after my God, and I have not squandered
what was so bountifully given; and though
I do not expect, like our arch patriarch
Walton, to number ninety years and past,
yet, I hope, as long as I can enjoy in a ver-
nal day the warmth and heat of the sun-
beams, still to haunt the streams — following
the example of our late venerable friend, the

ANGLING. 213

President of the Royal Academy,* in com-
pany with whom, when he was an octoge-
narian, I have thrown the fly, caught trout,
and enjoyed a delightful day of angling and
social amusement, in the shady green mea-
dows by the bright clear streams of the
Vandalis.

* Benjamin West.

THE END.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY C. ROVVORTH, BEI.L YARD,
TEMPLE BAR.

I