Chapter II: Part 2

PHYS.—By creeping on my knees, and dropping my fly over the bank, I hooked a very large fish which I saw rising, and 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 Ornither took with the natural fly.

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 enormous fish without taking him.

HAL.—I dare say he was a large fish; but I have known very correct, and even cool, reasoners in error on a point of this kind. You are acquainted with Chemicus; he is not an ardent fisherman, and certainly not addicted to romance; I will tell you an anecdote respecting him. He accompanied me to this very spot last year, on a visit to our host, and preferred angling for pike to fly fishing. After the amusement of a morning, he brought back with him to the house one pike, and with some degree of disappointment complained that he had hooked another of an enormous size, which carried off his tackle by main force, and which he was sure must have been above 10lbs. At dinner, on the table, there were two pikes; one the fish that Chemicus had caught, and another a little larger, somewhat more than 3lbs. We put some questions as to who had caught this second pike, which we found had been taken by our host, who smiling, and with some kind of mystery, asked Chemicus if he thought it weighed 10lbs. Chemicus refused to acknowledge an identity between such a fish and the monster he had hooked; when my friend took out of his pocket a paper containing some hooks and tackle carefully wrapped up, and asked Chemicus if he had ever seen such an apparatus. Chemicus owned they were the hooks and tackle the great fish had carried away. “And I found them,” said our friend, “in the mouth of that very _little_ fish which you see on the table, and which I caught half an hour ago.”

HOST.—I answer for the correctness of this anecdote, but I do not sanction its application to the case of our novitiate in angling. I have seen a fish under that bank where he was so unfortunate, which I am sure was above four pounds, and which I dare say was the subject of his unsuccessful experiment.

POIET.—From what our host has just said, I conclude, Halieus, that fish do not usually change their stations.

HAL.—Large trouts unquestionably do not;—they always hide themselves under the same bank, stone, stock, or weed, as I said this morning before, and come out from their permanent habitations to feed; and when they have fled to their haunt, they may be taken there by the hand; and on this circumstance the practice of tickling trout is founded. A favourite place for a large trout in rivers is an eddy behind a rock or stone, where flies and small fishes are carried by the force of the current: and such haunts are rarely unoccupied; for if a fish is taken out of one of them, his place is soon supplied by another, who quits for it a less convenient situation.

PHYS.—So much knowledge and practice is required to become a proficient, that I am afraid it is too late in life for me to begin to learn a new art.

HAL.—Do not despair. There was—alas! that I must say there was—an illustrious philosopher, who was nearly of the age of fifty before he made angling a pursuit, yet he became a distinguished fly-fisher, and the amusement occupied many of his leisure hours during the last twelve years of his life. He, indeed, applied his pre-eminent acuteness, his science, and his philosophy to aid the resources, and exalt the pleasures of this amusement. I remember to have seen Dr. Wollaston, a few days after he had become a fly-fisher, carrying at his buttonhole a piece of caoutchouc, or Indian rubber, when, by passing his silk-worm link through a fissure in the middle, he rendered it straight and fit for immediate use. Many other anglers will remember other ingenious devices of my admirable and ever-to-be lamented friend.

(_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 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 evening’s 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 gray 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 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 continuously, 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 many 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 can reach the spot, and throw at least half-a-yard 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 4lbs. 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 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 2lbs. 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 3lbs., and in excellent season.

PHYS.—Anche Io son Pescatore—I am too a fisherman—a triumph.

HAL.—Now we have finished our fishing, and must return to the light supper of our 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, 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 fishing; 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 beginning 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 prepared for the sexual function, or that of re-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 generally 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 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 Ephemeræ, 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 partridge, brown and yellow brown. These three kinds of flies lay their eggs in the water, which produce larvæ that remain in the state of worms, feeding and breathing in the water till they are prepared for their metamorphosis and quit the bottoms of the rivers, and the mud and stones, for the surface, 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 become 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 Ephemeræ of the same species.

The excess of heat seems equally unfavourable, as the excess of cold, to the existence of the smaller species of water-insects, which, during the intensity of sunshine, seldom appear in summer, but rise morning and evening only. The blue dun has in 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 Ephemeræ 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 character, 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 part of the stream below St. Albans, and between that and Watford, I have sometimes, 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 Stockbridge, the other by Hungerford. But in the Wandle at Carshalton and Beddington, the May-fly is not found; and the little blues are the constant, and when well imitated, 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 mountainous parts of Britain, the spring and autumnal flies are by far the most killing. 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 any thing 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 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 10lbs., 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 October, 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 3lbs. that took a large reddish-brown fly of the same kind as a salmon fly; and I saw some taken that weighed 5lbs., and heard of one that equalled 9lbs. These fish were in good season, even at this late period, and had no spots, but were coloured red and brown—mottled like tortoise-shell, only with smaller bars. I have in July, likewise, fished in Loch Con, near Ballina, 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 common trout.

POIET.—This must have been an interesting kind of fishing. In what does the gillaroo 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 internally 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 quantity 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 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 gillaroo 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 small lake at the foot of the Crest of the Brenner, above 4000 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 thickness, and was filled with grasshoppers: but there were _char_, which fed on _shell-fish_, in the same lake.

POIET.—Are water-flies found on all rivers?

HAL.—This is a question which I find it impossible to answer; yet from my own experience 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 various 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 diminution of the numbers of flies. There were always some seasons in which the temperature 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 autumnal flies, except in those rivers which are fed from sources that run from chalk, and which are 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 considerable streams are drained; and the consequence is, that they are more likely to be affected by severe droughts and great floods—the first killing, and the second washing away the larvæ and aurelias. May-flies thirty years ago were abundant in the upper part of the Teme river in Herefordshire, where it receives the Clun: they are now rarely seen. 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 Dartmoor and Exmoor, are rapid and unfordable torrents after rain, and in dry summers little more than scanty rills; and Exmoor and Dartmoor, almost the only considerable 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 comparing 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. From the sponge-like roof of thatch, on the contrary, it is long before the water drops; but it continues dropping and wet for hours after the shower is over and the slate dry.

POIET.—You spoke just now of the gillaroo trout, as belonging only to Ireland. I can, however, hardly bring myself to believe, that such a fish is not to be found elsewhere. For lakes with shell-fish and char are common in various parts of Europe, and as the gillaroo trout is congenerous, it ought to exist both in Scotland and the Alpine countries.

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 met with a gillaroo trout except in Ireland. It is true, it is only lately that I have had my attention directed to this subject, and other fishermen or naturalists may be more fortunate.

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 brandling, 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 understood, that, perhaps, I ought not to venture to give an account of it. But in doing so, you will consider me as rather asking for new information, than as attempting a satisfactory view of this little animal.

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 be a mixed race, that it is produced by the sea trout and common trout. In a small river, which runs into the Moy, near Ballina in Ireland, I once caught in October a great number of small sea trout, which were generally about half-a-pound in weight, and 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 common river trout. The sea trout and river trout are, indeed, so like each other in character, that such a mixture seems exceedingly probable; but I know no reason why such mules should always continue small, except that it may be a mark of imperfection. The only difference between the par and common small trout is in the colours, and 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 and sea trout seem capable of changing permanently their places of residence; and sea trout appear 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, likewise, 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 common trout are almost infinite; from the great lake trout, which weighs above 60 or 70lbs., to the trouts of the little mountain brook or small mountain lake, or tarn, which is scarcely larger than the finger. The smallest trout spawn 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 diminished 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 offspring, 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 fario_, which in colour and appearance is like a fresh run salmon, spawns in the river at Riva, beginning to run up for that purpose 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, it is probable, they were originally bred. 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, particularly in that of the Tarun near Gmunden, and likewise at Loch Neah in Ireland. Indeed, considering the sea trout as the type of the species _trout_, I think all the other true trouts may not improperly be considered 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 manner as in the variety of dogs, which may all be referred to one primitive type.[4]

PHYS.—I am somewhat amused at your idea of the change produced in the species of trout by the formation of particular characters by particular accidents, and their hereditary transmission. It reminds me of the ingenious but somewhat unsound views of Darwin on the same subject.

HAL.—I will not allow you to assimilate my views to those of an author, who, however ingenious, is far too speculative; whose poetry has always appeared to me weak philosophy, and his philosophy indifferent poetry: and to whom I have been often accustomed to apply Blumenbach’s saying, that there were many things new and many things true in his doctrines; but that what was new was not true, and what was true was not new.

POIET.—I think Halieus is quite in the right to be a little angry at your observation, Physicus, in making him a disciple of a writer, who, as well as I can recollect, has deduced the _genesis_ of the human being, by a succession of changes dependant upon irritabilities, sensibilities, and appetencies, from the _fish_; blending the wild fancies of Buffon with the profound ideas of Hartly, and thus endeavouring to give currency to an absurd romance, by mixing with it some philosophical truths. I hope your parallel will induce him to do us the favour to state his own notions more at large.

HAL.—Physicus has mistaken me; and I will explain. What I mentioned of the varieties of dogs as sprung from one type, he will, I am sure, allow me to apply, with some modifications, to all our cultivated breeds of animals, whether horses, oxen, sheep, hogs, geese, ducks, turkies, or pigeons; and he will allow, that certain characters gained by accidents, either from peculiar food, air, water, or domestic treatment, are transmitted to, and often strengthened in the next generation; the qualities being, as it were, doubled when belonging to both parents, and retained in spite of counteracting causes. It will be sufficient for me to mention only a few cases. The blood-horse of Arabia, is become the favourite of the north of Europe, and the colts possess all the superior qualities of their parents, even in the polar circle. The offspring of the Merino sheep retain the fineness of their wool in England and Saxony. Poultry, bantams, tumbling and carrier pigeons, geese, ducks, turkies, &c., all afford instances of the same kind; and in the goose and duck, not only is the colour of the feathers changed, but the form of the muscles of the legs and wings; those of the wings, being little employed, become weak and slender; those of the legs, on the contrary, being much used, are strong and fleshy; and it is well to know this, as, in the young birds, the muscles of the legs and thighs are the best parts for the epicure, a large quantity of flesh being developed there, but not yet hardened or rendered tough by exercise. These facts are of the same kind and depend on the same principles, as the peculiarity of the breeds or races in trouts. Fish in a clear cool river, that feed much on larvæ, and that swallow their hard cases, become yellower, and the red spots increase so as to outnumber the black ones; and these qualities become fixed in the young fishes, and establish a particular variety. If trout from a lake, or another river of a different variety, were introduced into this river, they would not at once change their characters; but the change would take place gradually. Thus I have known trout from a lake in Scotland, remarkable for their deep red flesh, introduced into another lake, where the trout had only white flesh, and they retained the peculiar redness of their flesh for many years. At first they all associated together in spawning in the brook which fed the lake, but those newly introduced were easily known from their darker backs and brighter sides. By degrees, however, from the influence of food and other causes, they became changed; the young trout of the introduced variety had flesh less red than their parents; and in about twenty years the variety was entirely lost, and all the fish were in their original white state. A very speculative reasoner might certainly defend the hypothesis, of the change of _species_ in a long course of ages, from the establishment of particular characters as hereditary. It might be said, that trout, after having thickened their stomachs by feeding on larvæ with hard cases, gained the power of eating shell-fish, and were gradually changed to gillaroos and to char; their red spots and the yellow colour of their belly and fins increasing. In the same manner it might be said, that the large trout which feed almost entirely on small fishes, gained more spines in the pectoral fins, and became a new species; but _I_ shall not go so far, and I know no facts of this kind. The gillaroo and the char appear always with the same characters: and I have never seen any fish that seemed in a state of transition from a trout to gillaroo or a char; which I think, must have been the case if such changes took place. I hope, after this explanation, Physicus will not find any analogy between my ideas and those of a school, to which I am not ambitious of being thought to belong; and that he will allow my views to be sound, or at least founded upon correct analogies.

POIET.—Do you know any facts of a similar kind in confirmation of your idea that the par is a mule?

HAL.—I have heard of similar instances, but I cannot say I have myself witnessed them. The common carp and the cruscian are said to produce a mixed race, and likewise the rud and the roach; but I have never paid much attention to varieties of the carp kind. A friend of mine informed me, that in a branch of the Test, into which graylings had recently been introduced, his fisherman caught a fish, which appeared to be from a cross between the trout and grayling, having the high back fin of the grayling, and the head and spots of the trout: this is the more remarkable, if correct, as the grayling spawns in the late spring, and the trout in the late autumn or winter: yet I _do_ recollect that I once took a grayling in the end of November, in which the ova were so large, as nearly to be ready for protrusion. The fisherman of the Gründtl See, in Styria, informed me, that he had seen a fish which he believed to be a mule between the trout and char, the fins of which resembled those of a trout, though the body was in other respects like that of a char. The seasons at which these two species spawn approach nearer to each other; but the char spawns in still and the trout in running water. In general the trout are mature before the char, yet I have seen in the Leopoldstein See, in Styria, a female char, of which the eggs were almost fully developed as early as June: the fisherman of the Gründtl See said, that these peculiar fish were very rare, and that he caught only one in about 500 char. It is not, I think, impossible, that it may be an umbla, a fish that might be expected to be found in that deep, cold, Alpine lake, a peculiar species and not a mixed variety. It is a fertile and very curious subject for new experiments, that of crossing the breeds of fishes, and offers a very interesting and untouched field of investigation, which I hope will soon be taken up by some enlightened country gentleman, who in this way might make not only curious but useful discoveries.

POIET.—So much science would be required to make these experiments with success, and there would be so many difficulties in the way of preserving fishes at the time they are proper for reproduction, that I fear very few country gentlemen would be capable of prosecuting the inquiry.

HAL.—The science required for this object is easily attained, and the difficulties are quite imaginary. The impregnation of the ova of fishes is performed out of the body, and it is only necessary to pour the seminal liquor from the melt upon the ova in water. Mr. Jacobi, a German gentleman, who made many years ago experiments on the increase of trout and salmon, informs us, that the ova and melt of mature fish, recently dead, will produce living offspring. His plan of raising trout from the egg was a very simple one. He had a box made with a small wire grating at one end in the cover, for admitting water from a fresh source or stream, and at the other end of the side of the box there were a number of holes to permit the exit of the water: the bottom of the box was filled with pebbles and gravel of different sizes, which were kept covered with water that was always in motion. In November or the beginning of December, when the trout were in full maturity for spawning, and collected in the rivers for this purpose upon beds of gravel, he caught males and females in a net, and by the pressure of his hands, received the ova in a basin of water, and suffered the melt or seminal fluid to pass into the basin; and after they had remained a few minutes together, he introduced them upon the gravel in the box, which was placed under a source of fresh, cool, and pure water. In a few weeks the eggs burst, and the box was filled with an immense number of young trout, which had a small bag attached to the lower part of their body containing a part of the yolk of the egg, which was still their nourishment. In this state they were easily carried from place to place in confined portions of fresh water for some days, requiring apparently no food; but, after about a week, the nourishment in their bag being exhausted, they began to seek their food in the water, and rapidly increased in size. As I have said before, Mr. Jacobi assures us, that the experiment succeeded as well with mature fish, that had been killed for the purpose of procuring the roe and melt, these having been mixed together in cold water immediately after they were taken out of the body. I have had this experiment tried twice, and with perfect success, and it offers a very good mode of increasing to any extent the quantity of trout in rivers or lakes, for the young ones are preserved from the attacks of fishes, and other voracious animals or insects, at the time when they are most easily destroyed, and perfectly helpless. The same plan, I have no doubt, would answer equally well with grayling or other varieties of the salmo genus. But in all experiments of this kind, the great principle is, to have a constant current of fresh and aerated water running over the eggs. The uniform supply of air to the fœtus in the egg is essential for its life and growth, and such eggs as are not supplied with water saturated with air are unproductive. The experimenter must be guided exactly by the instinct of the parent fishes, who take care to deposit the impregnated eggs, that are to produce their offspring, only in sources continually abounding in fresh and aerated water.

PHYS.—But as every species of fish has a particular and usually different time for spawning, I do not see how it could be contrived to cross their breeds, or how the ova of a trout, which spawns in December, could be impregnated by the seminal fluid of the grayling, which spawns in May; for I conclude it would be impossible to preserve the eggs of a fish out of the body in a state in which they could retain or recover their vitality.

HAL.—I believe I mentioned before, that I had found instances, in which the ova of fish were developed at a different period from their natural one; and I have no doubt, that a little inquiry respecting the habits of fishes would enable us to acquire a knowledge of the circumstances, which either hasten or retard their maturity. Plenty of food and a genial season hasten the period of their reproduction, which is delayed by want of proper nourishment, and by unfavourable weather. Males and females likewise, confined from each other, have their generative powers impeded; and trout, grayling, and salmon, will not deposit their ova except in running water; so that by keeping them in tanks, the period of their maturity might be considerably altered. I have seen char even, which had been kept in confined water from September till July; and so slow had been the progress of the ova, that they appeared to be about this time fit for exclusion, though, in the natural course of things, they would have been ripe in the end of October of the year before. By attending to and controlling all these circumstances, I have no doubt many interesting experiments might be made, as to the possibility of modifying the varieties of the salmo, by impregnating the ova of one species with the seminal fluid of another. With fishes of other genera the task would be still more easy. Carp, perch, and pike, deposit their ova in still water in spring and summer, when it is supplied with air by the growth of vegetables: and it is to the leaves of plants, which afford a continual supply of oxygen to the water, that the impregnated eggs usually adhere; so that researches of this kind might be conducted within doors in close vessels, filled with plants, exposed to the sun. I have myself kept minnows and sticklebacks alive for many months in the same confined quantity of water, containing a few confervæ; and their ova and melt increased in the same manner, as if they had been in their natural situation.

ORN.—I conclude from your statements, Halieus, that nothing more is required for the production of fishes from impregnated eggs, than a constant supply of water of a certain temperature furnished with air; and of course the same principles will apply to fishes of the sea.

HAL.—There can be no doubt of it: and fishes in spawning time always approach great shallows, or shores covered with weeds, that, in the process of their growth, under the influence of the sunshine, constantly supply pure air to the water in contact with them.

POIET.—In every thing belonging to the economy of nature, I find new reasons for wondering at the designs of Providence,—at the infinite intelligence by which so many complicated effects are produced by the most simple causes. The precipitation of water from the atmosphere, its rapid motion in rivers, and its falls in cataracts, not only preserve this element pure, but give it its vitality, and render it subservient even to the embryo life of the fish; and the storms which agitate the ocean, and mingle it with the atmosphere, supply at once food to marine plants, and afford a principle of life to the fishes which inhabit its depths. So that the perturbation and motion of the winds and waves possess a use, and ought to impress us with a beauty higher and more delightful even than that of the peaceful and glorious calm.

THIRD DAY.

HALIEUS—POIETES—ORNITHER—PHYSICUS.

SCENE—DENHAM.

_Morning._

HAL.—YOU will soon take your leave, gentlemen, 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. For though I know our liberal host will have a basket of fish packed up for each of our party, yet fish taken this morning will be imagined a more acceptable present than those caught yesterday. 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 the largest fish, and I will soon follow you.

POIET.—I hope I shall catch a large fish,—a companion to that which Ornither took yesterday with a natural fly.

[_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 every where; but though we have been throwing over them with all our skill for a quarter of an hour, yet not a single one 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; 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 answer 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 inconvenienced by the light, have given no alarm. 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 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, and 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 as much relates to fly-fishing as that of Physicus, and affords an elucidation of a particular effect of light.

A manufacturer of carmine, who was aware of the superiority of the French 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, yet he found not the least difference in the French mode of fabrication and that which he had constantly adopted. He appealed to the manufacturer, 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 materials, 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 deceive 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 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 Englishman; “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 diminished 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.