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[Being lately on a visit to a worthy old friend in the country, our conversation turned on the -- pleasures of angling, and thus touched a string which vibrated on his mind with peculiar force. He told us this sport had been his favourite pastime for many years, and that he had been induced to pursue it with the greater ardour by a series of Letters, which he had received from an experienced brother of the art, written with so much spirit and accurate knowledge of the subject, as not only to instruct but to delight him. Wishing to communicate the same gratification to others, which he had felt himself, he yielded to our persuasion to allow them to appear in the New Monthly Magazine. We shall, therefore, give them a place in our successive Numbers; and as they contain many anecdotes and descriptions of beautiful scenery in England, Scotland, and Wales, as well as instructions for angling, and various particulars of natural history connected with that amusement, we flatter ourselves they will prove very entertaining to our readers in general.]

LETTER I.

Angling. I AM prompted by our long-continucd friendship to assure you, that as I set a great value upon your health and comfort, I rejoice to hear that you have resolved to quit your sedentary employment in town, and intend to retire into the country. The smoky atmosphere of London will be happily exchanged for the pure air of the Wiltshire downs, and when you are once settled there, a person of your excellent flow of spirits, and activity of mind, is not likely to become a prey to ennui, or to want resources. You will seldom, if ever, I trust, cast a longing lingering look behind," and sigh for your deserted occupation, like the retired tallow-chandler who wished to return to the old shop on dipping days. Your paternal acres will afford you sufficient scope to employ yourself profitably as an agriculturist; and your wish to serve your country both usefully and honourably, will induce you to act as a magistrate. You have in your power

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Retirement, friendship, books, as our favourite poet Thomson observes; and I trust, from what I presume will be the tenour of your conduct, that you will be rewarded with the blessings contained in the remaining part of that poet's delightful description :

Applauding conscience, and approving Heav'n.

When you communicate to me your fears, that you shall have too much leisure upon your hands, and are desirous to pass your vacant hours in angling, permit me to suggest that neither that nor any other amusement ought to occupy too much time. Excess is an evil in all things; in nothing more than in *our recreations, especially as their too frequent repetition destroys our relish for them, and makes a toil of what would otherwise be a pleasure. Perdrix, toujours perdrix, is the complaint of the surfeited epicure. Avoid a super

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Die of a rose in aromatic pain.

Moderate your desires then, and mindful of my hints, be content with giving a day to angling now and then; and recollect a truism, which although obvious may be repeated to advantage, till of improvement---that human life is too all mankind have reached the summit

short, and our duties are too numerous and urgent, to allow us to sacrifice great portions of it to recreations and sports.

After having said so much in order to damp your ardour a little, and keep your pursuit of this new amusement within due bounds, I shall now proceed to assure you, that as you pay me the compliment of applying to me for information, I will comply with your wishes in the best manner I can. I have practised the art of angling for many years; its pursuit has been the solace of my cares, and the occupation of many a vacant hour, and it has answered the delightful purposes of increasing any fondness for the charms of nature, and the solitude of the country.

But as my skill and knowledge, in angling are not equal to my love of it, you must excuse me for not attempting to communicate to you any thing like a regular treatise on angling: for such a work you must apply to those accomplished adepts in the art, whose works are deservedly popular.

In order to please you, I shall adopt the following plan: I am just going to set out upon a piscatory tour, and I promise to correspond with you in the course of it. From my desultory letters, and excursive way of writing, you may pick up many a useful hint, that may make you cheaply wise at the expense of the dearly-bought experience of myself and others. I may at least amuse, if I do not instruct you; and if I do not display any great ability, or talents, you will, I flatter myself, give

me credit for my best endeavours to make my letters, as far as I am able, "Magazines of knowledge and pleasure."

My letters will contain descriptions of all our river fishes, their haunts and baits, the best rivers and waters in which they may be found, and the proper seasons for angling. I shall endeavour to enliven these subjects with descriptions of places, and anecdotes of persons connected with the subject of the work, that I think may entertain you. That such digression may be properly introduced into such a work as this, which modestly aspires to be called didactic, I may plead the authority of your favourite poet Virgil in his Georgics. And, by the bye, perhaps the readers of the Mantuan Bard in general are more pleased with his description of the Scythian winter, and the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, than with his explanation of the construction of a plough, or his direction for the management of bees.

That reader can be neither "courteous hor gentle" who does not relish the work of Isaac Walton the more, for introducing the praises of Hawking and Hunting, the Milkmaid's song, and her Mother's answer, into his incomparable work. My subjects will be miscellaneous, in order to render the Letters more pleasing.

I hope you will not like me the less because I have sometimes quitted the turnpike-road line of travelling through my subject, but occasionally

have stray'd,

Wild as the mountain bee, and cull'd a sweet
From every flower that beautify'd my way.

With respect to my statement of matters of fact, I shall confine myself to such as have occurred to my own observation, or are confirmed by respectable authority. Whatever new facts are brought forward are to be considered as so many additions to the science of ichthyology which you will find, the more you take pains to investigate, to be a very curious and interesting branch of natural history.

The ardour with which the love of angling can inspire its votary, is, I think, as great as that produced by any

other recreation whatever. A foxhunter or a shot cannot be more enthusiastic than a young angler. The school-boy gladly expends all the money he can save upon a fishing-rod and tackle, and the hope of sport enables him to bear, without repining, the pri

vation of tarts and fruits. When I was NEW MONTHLY MAG-No. 78.

a school-boy, on the arrival of the long wished-for holiday, the enjoyment of it consisted in going a-fishing with some companions who glowed with the same ardour. What pleasure we felt in preparing our tackle! What eagerness in searching for baits! What haste in running, regardless of the scorching sun, or the drizzling rain, to some bank near the favourite hole! What competition of dexterity and alertness in preparing the tackle! What desire to be the foremost to dip a line into the water, and catch the first fish! We were so absorbed by all the circumstances that attended the sport, that we brought baits for the fish in plenty but no sustenance for ourselves.

Far from home
We fed on scarlet hips, and stony haws,
Or blushing crabs or berries, that emboss
The bramble, black as jet, or sloes austere.
Hard fare! but such as boyish appetite
Disdains not-nor the palate undepraved
By culinary arts unsavory deems.*

If we failed of success, disappointment might damp, but could not extinguish our desire, for at the next opportunity we pursued the same amusement with the same keen relish, and the same unabated activity; and the same ardour inspires the more mature angler. He endures heat and cold, wet and wind, in the pursuit of his favourite sport, even to the danger of his health; and makes him forget the hours he has a run, a rise, or a bite rouses his spirits, waited for it. And if he catches a few fish, although their real value bear no proportion to his loss of time, and his expense, yet they make him ample amends for all his toil, and with a pleasure only known to anglers, he triumphs in the possession of his prizes.

what is the motive or incentive to this As a philosopher, you may ask me species of recreation? I shall tell you plainly, without any flourish or attempt at an elaborate disquisition-that in my humble opinion, the motive is comwhich keeps hope and expectation pounded of the pleasure of pursuit alive, and the pleasure of acquisition which rewards them.

There is sometimes a state of uncer

tainty in angling which is found to be hook a good fish-he feels heavy and a source of great pleasure. Suppose you he plunges into the deep water. He strikes towards the bank, your_line slackens, and you fear he is gone. Then you feel him drawing the line tight

* Cowper's Sofa. VOL. XIV.

D

again--he struggles, but with diminish- "after his study, angling was a rest

ed strength, he makes a few desperate efforts, he displays himself, expanding his gills, and you at length draw him breathless and exhausted upon his broadside. At length you land him, and survey with admiring eyes your scaly victim stretched lifeless on the bank.

The next step in your pleasure is to exhibit him, when you reach home, to your friends; and your triumph reaches its climax when your fish is brought to table well dressed and accompanied with good sauces, and all the company unite in exclaiming, " Fine size! high season! delicious flavour! He who caught such a grand fish must be a second Walton."

The great degree of patience requisite in angling is sometimes thrown out as a reproach, as much as to say, that the patient angler is a kind of a Jerry Sneak, a tame and spiritless animal. But does not patience, in the estimation of philosophers as well as Christians, rank high among the virtues? And is not its exercise necessary in almost every pursuit in life? In winter must we not wait for the zephyrs of spring; in spring for the flowers of summer; and in summer for the fruits of autumn; for they will none of them come at our call. How long is the lover content to wait for his mistress, the miser to gain some additional bags of money, and the courtier to dance attendance for a blue ribbon, or a gold stick?

But the imputation of patience in a degrading sense to an angler, comes, let me be free to say, with a very ill grace from other sportsmen. What patience must those exercise who are fond of coursing, before they can find a hare! In shooting, how many fields must the best shot sometimes beat, before his dogs find a covey, or he gets a single point! And in hunting, how many covers must be sometimes drawn, before a fox can be found! And many are the blank days every modern Nimrod must reckon even in a favourable season. Let these gentlemen-the courser, the shot, and the hunter, prescribe patience to each other, for, believe me, the fisherman does not want a larger dose of it than they do themselves.

I conclude this Letter with the praise given to our darling pursuit by Sir Henry Wotton, one of the most accomplished men of an accomplished age, and a most worthy, right skilful, and renowned brother of the angle. He said, that

to his mind, a cheerer of his spirits, a diverter of sadness, a calmer of unquiet thoughts, a moderator of passion, a procurer of contentedness; and it begets habits of peace and patience in those that profess and practise it."

LETTER II.

On Fish in general.

I TRUST you are not grown so complete a rustic, and so ignorant of what is passing in the world, as not to know that every person of the least respectability aspires to the character of being scientific. To be a botanist is, to be sure, rather out of date, although a few years ago no lady or gentleman could appear in company without being able to talk of the genera and species of the vegetable tribes, and like King Solomon, they discoursed on plants from "the hyssop on the wall to the cedar of the forest." Now we are all grown chemists, mineralogists, entomologists, geologists, or horticulturists, and exert all possible interest to be elected members of some renowned societies. It is my ambition to make you scientific in my own way, and therefore I shall endeavour to qualify you to assume the style, title, and dignity of an Ichthyologist. Start not at the strange-looking word, as such compound Greek terms are at present much in vogue. Kaleidoscope, it is true, happily for our eye-sight, is gone out of fashion; the Telegraph is changing for the Semaphore; but you must not be so old-fashioned as to talk of an Orrery, for the superior name is the Diastrodoxon; if you want a footman, you are directed to the Therapolegia in Soho Square, where no doubt you will meet with a capital one, unless he has been in the employ of the Greeks in a gambling-house, and they, you may be assured, speak a very different dialect to that which will assist us in the explanation of the above-mentioned titles.

The

But to be serious, and come to the point. The branch of natural history which I am desirous to make you acquainted with, is called Ichthyology; this compound word is derived from

us, a fish, and λoyos, an account, or description.

Fish form the fourth class of animals in the system of Linnæus. There are about 400 species of which we have some knowledge; but those that are unknown, and live in the great deep unmolested by man, and unassailable by

his methods of destruction, are supposed to be much more numerous.

The Orders of Fish.

Linnæus divides fish into six orders. The principal marks of distinction are derived from the peculiar formation attending the gills and fins. The first four orders include all those fish that have osseous, or bony gills, and this fact must be understood as applicable to the other characters, which Linnæus employs to distinguish these orders.

ORDER 1. Apodes, or fish which have no ventral or belly fins. This order includes all the eel tribes, whether they inhabit seas, lakes, or rivers. 2. Jugulares, or fish with the ventral placed before the pectoral fins, as in the had dock, whiting, ling, &c. 3. Thoracici, or fish with the ventral situated under the pectoral fins, as in the holibut, plaice, &c. 4. Abdominales, or fish with the ventral situated behind the pectoral fins, as the pike, mullet, herring, &c. 5. Branchiostegi, or fish whose gills are destitute of osseous matter, as the sunfish, pike-fish, frog-fish, &c. 6. Chondropterygii, or fish with cartilaginous gills, as the sturgeon, dog-fish, &c.

From this full, and I think clear, display of scientific arrangement, I proceed to general observations; and I acknowledge my obligations to Dr. Skrimshire for many of them. They are taken from Series of Essays introductory to the Study of Natural History," a work deserving your attentive perusal, as it is written with philosophical precision, and accurate knowledge of the subject.

his "

The curious shapes, forms, and structures of fish are admirably adapted to their situations; for to inhabit an element so much heavier than air, they want not the expansive wings of birds to buoy them up, but being themselves nearly of the same specific gravity as the water which they inhabit, their fins are all that is requisite to enable them to move with ease, and steer their course at pleasure. The exact use of their fins, and how accurately their position and number are adjusted, will appear by the following quotation from Paley's Natural Theology:

"In most fish, besides the great fin, the tail, we find two pair of fins upon the sides, two single fins upon the back, and one upon the belly, or rather between the belly and the tail. The balancing use of these organs is proved in this manner. Of the large headed fish, if you cut off the pectoral fins, that is the pair which lies close behind the gills, the head falls prone to the bottom: if

the right pectoral fin only be cut off, the fish leans to that side; if the ventral fin on the same side be cut away, then it loses its equilibrium entirely: if the dorsal and ventral fins be cut off, the fish reels to the right and left.

"When the fish dies, that is when the fins cease to play, the belly turns upward. The use of the same parts for motion is seen in the following observation upon them when put in action. The pectoral and more and depress the fish. When the fish desires particularly the ventral fins serve to raise ward with the pectoral fin effectually proto have a retrograde motion, a stroke forduces it; if the fish desires to turn either way, a single blow with the tail the opposite way sends it round at once: if the tail strikes both ways, the motion produced by the double lash progressive, and enables

the fish to dart forwards with astonishing
velocity. When the tail is cut off, the fish
the water impels it."
loses all motion, and gives itself up to where

Fish in general are supposed not to
possess the senses in the same degree of
perfection as most other animals. Their
sense of feeling appears not to be acute.
Whether they can smell at all is doubt-
ful; and that they do not possess the
sense of taste, or have it in an imperfect
degree is probable, because the palate of
most fish is hard and bony, and conse-
quently they are incapable of relishing
different substances, and they swallow
their food without mastication. Whe-
ther fish possess the sense of hearing is
a disputed point. I am rather inclined
to think they do not. Monroe, Hunter,
and Cuvier, have claimed the merit of
discovering the organs of hearing in
some fishes, but observation seems to
oppose their theories with respect to
fishes in general. Mr. Gowan, who
kept some gold fishes in a vase, informs
us, that whatever noise he made he
could not disturb them. He hallooed
as loud as he could, putting a piece of
paper between his mouth and the water
to prevent the vibrations from affecting
the surface, and the fishes still seemed
insensible; but when the paper was re-
moved, and the sound had its full play
upon the water, the fishes seemed in-
stantly to feel the change, and shrinked
to the bottom. From this we may
learn, that fishes are as deaf as they are
mute, and that when they seem to hear
the call of a whistle or bell at the edge
of a pond, it is rather the vibration that
affects the water, by which they are ex-
cited, than any sounds that they hear*.

Elegant Extracts of Natural History, by R. Heron. Vol. ii. p. 107.

The sight is the most perfect of their senses, and this seems to supply their want of others. They leap out of the water to catch the smallest flies in a summer evening, when it is so dark that we cannot discern them. The angler need not employ half his ingenuity either with respect to tackle, or baits, or of caution in fishing, if he had not their very quick eyes to contend with. Yet it is probable fish can see objects only at a short distance, as the crystalline humour of their eyes is quite round, like that of persons who are near-sighted. You must have observed this humour; it is like a pea; it is hard when boiled, but in the natural state, it is transparent and soft as a jelly.

Thus fish appear to fall short of terrestrial animals in their faculties, sensations, and consequently in their enjoyments. They form a sort of middle link in the chain of beings between quadrupeds and vegetables. Their senses are incapable of making any accurate distinctions, and they are impelled forward by a blind instinct in pursuit of whatever they can make their prey. From the smallest to the greatest-from the minnow to the whale, their existence is one continued scene of hostility and invasion; and they seem to suggest to man, by their own actions of continually preying upon each other, the desire to prey upon them.

Many fish live only on the vegetable productions of the water, but in general they devour their own species, other animals, or insects, or the spawn of -other fishes. Crabs and other shell-fish tare often found in the maw of a cod, and rats and even ducks have been found in the stomach of a pike. The long apparent abstinence that some fish have been known to undergo, or rather the small quantity or the peculiar nature of the food they have had to support them, have induced some persons to believe, that they can derive nourishment from water only; no kind of food is found in the stomach of a salmon, and no bait will tempt a herring or a char. But they may all derive considerable support from the myriads of minute insects, which we know to abound in fresh and salt water, and which taken in continually, and digested almost as soon as taken, would discover little or nothing in their stomachs, when examined with the greatest care.

You may remember the gold and silyer fish which we saw at Mrs. R.'s con

fined in a globular vessel of glass. She assured us that they had been carefully supplied with fresh water every day for two months, but no food whatever had been given to them. Yet they were not only alive, but very actively sporting about, and seemed to enjoy their existence as much as if they were at perfect liberty. They, no doubt, derive sufficient nutriment from the microscopic insects, with which all water abounds, and every fresh supply of water affords them an additional feast.

Although the duration of the life of fish is not accurately ascertained, yet some are known to reach a great age. Gesner asserts, that a pike was taken at Hailbrun in Swabia, in 1497, with a brass ring affixed to it, proving it to be 267 years old; and a carp has been known to live above a hundred

years.

If the scale of a fish be examined through a microscope, it will be found to consist of a number of circles, one circle within another, in some' measure resembling those that appear upon the transverse section of a tree. You must reckon one circle for every year of a fish's life. By this method Buffon computed a carp, the scales of which he examined, to be a hundred old.

years You must not let the astonishing fecundity of fishes escape your observation. M. Petit, of Paris, found that the roe of a carp eighteen inches long, weighed 8 oz. 2 drams, which make 4752 grains, and that it required 72 eggs of this roe to make up the weight of one grain, which gives a produce 342,144 eggs contained in this one fish. The tench is more prolific than the carp, and many other fish are remarkable for their fecundity.

Statement of the comparative Fecundity of Fish:

Fish.
Perch

Pike
Roach
Tench

Spawns.

28,323

49,304

81,586

383,252

Your astonishment will be increased when you extend your observation to sea-fish. Take the following climax of increase as calculated by Lewenhoeck, a very accurate naturalist. The mackamore than one million, and the cod rel produces above 500,000, the flounder more than nine millions of eggs.

The design of the great Creator in such an amazing increase is certainly to furnish food for many of the feathered,

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