Chapter IV: Part 4

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 choking their gills, and interfering with their respiration. I have never fished for salmon in Germany. The Elbe and the 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 Schaffausen, 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 October, a very large salmon there, and raised another; but it is only late in the autumn, that there is any chance of sport, though I have heard the spring salmon fishing boasted of. At Whitwell, in the Hodder, 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 that beautiful, but scantily stocked, river. Small salmon and sea trout, or sewens, as they are called in the country, may be caught, after the autumnal floods, I believe, in most of the considerable Welsh, Devonshire, and Cornish streams; but I have fished in many of them without success. The Conway I may except: this river, in the end of October, will sometimes, after a great flood, furnish a good day’s sport, and, if the net fishers could be set aside, several days’ sport. I have known two salmon, one above 20lbs., taken here in a day; and I have taken myself fine sea trout, or _sewens_,—which, in an autumnal flood in Wales, are found in most of the streams near the sea.

POIET.—I have heard a Northumberland man boast of the rivers of that county, as affording good salmon fishing.

HAL.—I have no doubt that salmon are sometimes caught in the Tyne, the Coquet, and the Till; but, in the present state of these rivers, this is a rare occurrence. I was once, for a week, on a good run of the North Tyne; I fished sometimes, but I 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 occurrence; 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 account of the Scotch and Irish rivers.

HAL.—I fear I shall tire you by attempting 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 “_fuit_.” Yet still, for spring salmon fishing, it must be a good river. The last great sport I had in that river was in 1817, in the beginning of April. I caught, in two or three hours, at Merton, four or five large salmon, and as many in the evening at Kelso—and one of them weighed 25lbs. 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. 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. In the Dee I have never caught salmon, though I have fished in two parts of it, but it was in bad seasons. In the Don I have seen salmon rise, and hooked one, but never killed a fish. In the Spey I enjoyed one of the best days’ 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 pools were full of fish. By a privilege, which I owed to the late Duke of Gordon, I fished at this forbidden time, and hooked twelve or thirteen fish in one day. One was above 30lbs., but it broke me by the derangement of my reel. I landed seven or eight,—one above 20lbs., which gave me great play in the rapids above the bridge. I returned to this 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 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 caught. The Brora, Sutherland, 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 contained fish; and at the top of one pool, which from its size was almost inexhaustible, 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 the very 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 without success—it was always foul when I made my attempt. I have heard of a good salmon river in Lord Reay’s county, the Laxford; its name, of Norwegian origin, would seem to be characteristic.[6] Along the coast of Scotland, most of the streams, if taken at the right time, afford sport. In this county the Beauly is a good river, and I have caught salmon in that very beautiful spot below the falls of Kilmarnock. The Ness, at Inverness, and the Awe 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 September, 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 river; which arises a good deal from the influence of the Catholic priests, when they are concerned in the interests of the proprietors, on 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 dominions; and the excellent proprietor of it, Dr. Shiel, 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 secured 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, _grauls_; and this was in a very bad season for salmon fishing. The Bann, near Coleraine, abounds in salmon: but, in this river, except in close time, when it is unlawful to fish there, there are few good casts. 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 it is of little use to try. 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 furnishes to the lovers of natural beauty, or of geological research, almost inexhaustible 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 tolerably 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 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-morrow, 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 likewise to be a day of worship and thanksgiving to the Great Cause of all the benefits and blessings we enjoy in this life, for which we can never sufficiently express our gratitude.

POIET.—I cannot see what harm there can be in pursuing an amusement on a Sunday, 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 proclaiming 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 servant 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 yourself as to the abstracted correctness of the practice, the habits of the country in which we now are, form an insurmountable obstacle to the pursuit of the amusement: by indulging in it, you would excite the indignation of the Highland peasants, and might perhaps expiate the offence by a compulsory 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 ridiculous; 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 intense 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 day of innocent recreation than severe discipline.

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 Catholics, and the habits of the French and Savoyards 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 western Christian world for 1000 years. The rigid observance of the seventh day 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 perform certain penances for their sins; and surely the Catholics may see a little still more resembling 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 to immortal life, and secured the everlasting hopes of the Christian. I see no reason why this day should not be celebrated with singing, dancing, and triumphal 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 peculiar habits of the Scotch church, and therefore may complain. Once in the north of Ireland, when a very young man, I ventured 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 sea trout in the river at Rathmelton, 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 mistaken; anger was their motive, and vengeance their object. A man soon came up, exceedingly drunk, and began to abuse me by various indecent terms: such as a Sabbath breaking papist, &c. It was in vain I assured him I was no papist, and no intentional Sabbath breaker; he seized my rod and carried it off with imprecations; and it was only with great difficulty, and in exciting by my eloquence the pity of 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 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 Sabbath breakers, and ye deserve to be staned with your ain stanes!”

HAL.—Zeal of every kind is sometimes troublesome, yet I generally suspect the persons, 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_, when this conduct is not pursued. The severe observance of the Sabbath is connected with the vital creed of these rigid presbyterians; it is not therefore extraordinary, that they should enforce it 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; be it 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 decay calls up beauty and divinity; makes an instrument of torture and of shame the ladder of ascent to paradise: and, far above all combinations of earthly hopes, calls up the most delightful visions of palms and amaranths, the gardens of the blest, the security of everlasting joys, where the sensualist and the sceptic view only gloom, decay, annihilation, and despair!

POIET.—You transiently referred, Halieus, yesterday, to that instinct of salmons which induces them to run up rivers from the sea on the approach of rain. You have had so many opportunities of attending to the instincts of the inferior animals, that I should be very glad to hear your opinion on that very curious subject, the nature and developement of instincts in general.

HAL.—You must remember, that, in the conversation to which you allude, I avoided even to pretend to define the nature of instinct; but I shall willingly discuss the subject; and I expect from yourself, Ornither and Physicus, more light thrown upon it than I can hope to bestow.

ORN.—I believe we have each a peculiar view on this matter. In discussion we may enlighten and correct each other. For myself, I consider instincts merely as results of organization, a part of the machinery of organized forms. Man is so constituted, that his muscles acquire their power by habit; their motions are at first automatic, and become voluntary by associations, so that a child must learn to walk as he learns to swim or write; but in the colt or chicken, the limbs are formed with the powers of motion; and these animals walk as soon as they have quitted the womb or the egg.

PHYS.—I believe it possible, that they may have acquired these powers of motion in the embryo state; and I think I have observed, that birds learn to fly, and acquire the use of their wings, by continued efforts, in the same manner as a child does that of his limbs.

ORN.—I cannot agree with you: the legs of the fœtus are folded up in the womb of the mare; and neither the colt nor the chicken can ever have performed, in the embryo state, any motions of their legs similar to those which they have perfectly at their command when born. Young birds cannot fly as soon as they are hatched, because they have no wing feathers; but as soon as these are developed, and even before they are perfectly strong, they use their wings, fly, and quit their nests without any education from their parents. Compare a young quail, when a few days old, with a child of as many months: he flies, runs, seeks his food, avoids danger, and obeys the call of his mother; whilst a child is perfectly helpless, and can perform few voluntary motions: has barely learnt to grasp, and can neither stand nor walk. But to see the most perfect instance of instinct, as contrasted with acquired knowledge, look at common domestic poultry, as soon as they are excluded from the egg: they run round their mother, nestle in her feathers, and obey her call, without education: she leads them to some spot where there is soft earth or dung, and instantly begins scratching with her feet; the chickens watch her motions with the utmost attention; if an earthworm or larva is turned up, they instantly seize and devour it, but they avoid eating sticks, grass, or straws; and though the hen shows them the example of picking up grain, they do not imitate her in this respect, but for some days prefer ants, or the larvæ of ants, to a barley corn. They may have heard the cluck of their mother in the egg, and having felt the warmth of her feathers agreeable, you may consider, Physicus, their collecting under her wings, and obeying her call, as an acquired habit. But I will mention another circumstance where habit or education is entirely out of the question. Does the mother see the shadow of a kite on the ground, or hear his scream in the air, she instantly utters a shrill suppressed cry; the chickens, though born that day, and searching round her with glee and animation for the food which her feet were providing for them, instantly appear as if thunder struck; those close to her crouch down and hide themselves in the straw; those further off, without moving from the place, remain prostrate; the hen looks upward with a watchful eye; nor do they resume their feeding till they have been called again by the cluck of their mother, and warned that the danger is over.

PHYS.—I certainly cannot explain the acquaintance of the little animals with the note of alarm of the mother, except upon the principle you have adopted; and I fairly own, that their selection of animal food appears likewise instinctive: yet it is possible, that this selection may depend upon some analogy between the smell of these animal matters and the yolk, which was for a long time their food in the egg.

ORN.—I find I must multiply examples. Examine young ducks which have been hatched under a hen; they no sooner quit the shell, than they fly to their natural element, the water, in spite of the great anxiety and terror of their foster-parent, who in vain repeats that sound to which her natural children are so obedient. Being in the water, they seize insects of every kind, which they can only know from their instincts to be good for food; and when they are hatched in the May-fly season, they pursue these large ephemeræ with the greatest avidity, and make them their favourite food. It is impossible, I think, to explain these facts, except by supposing, that they depend upon feelings or desires in the animals developed with their organs, which are not acquired, and which are absolutely instinctive. I will mention another instance. A friend of mine was travelling in the interior of Ceylon; on the banks of a lake he saw some fragments of shells of the eggs of the alligator, and heard a subterraneous sound: his curiosity was excited, and he was induced to search beneath the surface of the sand: besides two or three young animals lately come from the shell, he found several eggs which were still entire: he broke the shell of one of them, when a young alligator came forth, apparently perfect in all its functions and motions; and when my friend touched it with a stick, it assumed a threatning aspect, and bit the stick with violence. It made towards the water, which (though born by the influence of the sunbeams on the burning sand) it seemed to know was its natural and hereditary domain. Here is an animal which, deserted by its parents, and entirely submitted to the mercy of nature and the elements, must die if it had to acquire its knowledge; but all its powers are given, all its wants supplied; and even its means of offence and defence implanted by strong and perfect instincts. I will mention one fact more. Swallows, quails, and many other birds, migrate in large flocks when their usual food becomes scarce; and in these cases it may be said (I anticipate a remark of Physicus), that the phenomenon depends upon imitation, and that the young birds follow the old ones who have before made the same flight. But I will select the young cuckoo for an unexceptionable example of the instinctive nature of this quality. He is produced from an egg deposited by his mother in the nest of another bird, generally the hedge sparrow. He destroys all the other young ones hatched in the same nest, and is supplied with food by his foster-parent, after he has deprived her of all her natural offspring. Quite solitary, he is no sooner able to fly than he quits the country of his birth, and finds his way, with no other guide than his instinct, to a land where his parents had gone many weeks before him; and he is not pressed to make this migration by want of food, for the insects and grains on which he feeds are still abundant. The whole history of the origin, education, and migration of this singular animal, is a history of a succession of instincts, the more remarkable, because in many respects contrary to the usual order of nature.

PHYS.—I have been accustomed to refer many of the supposed instincts of animals, such as migrations, building nests, and selection of food, to imitation; but, I confess, I cannot explain the last fact you have brought forward on this principle. Pray, Ornither, let me state your view, as I understand it, that we may not differ as to the meaning of language. I conclude you adopt Hartley’s view of association, that the motions of the muscles in man are first automatic, and become voluntary by association; and that reason is the application of voluntary motions for a particular end. For instance: a child is not afraid of fire, but, bringing its hand near the fire, it is burnt, and the convulsions of the muscles produced by the pain ends in removing the hand from the source of pain. These motions by association are made voluntary; and after this experiment he avoids the fire by _reason_, and takes care always to perform those motions which remove his limbs from this destructive agent. But in contrasting instinct with this slow process, you would say, most animals, without having felt the effects of fire, have an innate dread of it; and in the same way, without having been taught, or experienced pleasure or pain from the object, young ducks seek the water, young chickens avoid it: their organs have a fitness or unfitness for certain functions, and they use them for these functions without education. In short, the instinctive application of the organ is independent of experience, and forms part of a train of pure sensations.

ORN.—I have no objection to the statement you make of my view of the subject; but I certainly should give to it a little more refinement and generality. In all the results of reason, ideas are concerned but never in those of instinct. Without memory there can be no reason; but in instinct nothing can be traced but pure sensation.

POIET.—Though in the animal world no ideas seem connected with instincts, yet they are all intended for specific and intelligent ends. Thus the swallow travels to a country where flies are found; the salmon migrates from the sea to the sources of fresh rivers, where its eggs may receive a supply of aerated water, and without this migration the race would be extinct: and in this way all the instincts of animals may be referred to intelligence, which, though not belonging to the animal, must be attributed to the Divine Mind. Is it not then reasonable to refer instinct to the immediate impulse of the Author of Nature upon his creatures? His omnipresence and omnipotence cannot be doubted, and to the infinite mind the past, the present, and the future are alike; and creative and conservative power must equally belong to it.

HAL.—That instincts depend upon impulses immediately derived from the Deity is an opinion which, though it perhaps cannot be confuted, yet does not please me so much as to believe them dependent upon the formation of organs, and the result of the general laws which govern the system of the universe; and it is in favour of this opinion that they are susceptible of modifications. Thus, in domesticated animals they are always changed; the turkey and the duck lose their habits of constructing nests, and the goose does not migrate. In supposing them the result of organization and hereditary, they might be expected to be changed by circumstances, as they are actually found to be. Without referring the instincts of animals to the immediate impulse of the Deity, they appear to me to offer the most irresistible and convincing argument that can be brought forward against atheism. They demonstrate combinations, the result of the most refined intelligence, which can only be considered as infinite. Take any one of the lowest class of animals, insects for instance, not only is their organization fitted to all their wants; but their association in society is provided for, and the laws of a perfect social community, as it were, are adopted by beings, that we are sure cannot reason. In the hive bee, for instance, the instinct of the workers leads them to adopt and obey a queen; and if she is taken away from them, or dies, they have the power of raising another from offspring in the cells by an almost miraculous process: they work under her government for a common object, allow males only to exist for the purpose of impregnating females, who preserve the society, and under whose government they send forth swarms, which readily place themselves under the protection of man. In the geometrical construction of their cells, the secretion of wax from their bodies, the collecting their food, and the care of the brood, there is a series of results which it requires a strong reason to follow, and which are the consequences of invariable instincts. Bees, since they have been noticed by naturalists, have the same habits, and, as it is probable that there have been many thousand of generations since the creation, it is evident, that the instincts of the first bees have been hereditary and invariable in their offspring; and it cannot be doubted, that they do now, as they did four thousand years ago, make some cells in combs larger than others for the purpose of containing the eggs and future grubs of drones, that are to be produced by a grub, which they are educating for a queen bee; and that these cells are connected with the common cells by a series, in which the most exact geometrical laws of transition are observed. An eminent philosopher has deduced an argument in favour of the existence of Deity from the analogy of the universe to a piece of mechanism, which could only be the work of an intelligent mind; but there is this difference: in all the productions of nature, the principle, not only of perfection, but likewise of conservation, is found, marking a species of intelligence and power which can be compared to nothing human. The first created swarm of bees contained beings provided with all the instincts necessary for the perpetual continuance of the species; and some of these instincts can scarcely be understood by man, requiring the most profound geometrical knowledge, even to calculate their results; and _other instincts_ involve what in human society would be the most singular state of policy, combining contrasted moral causes and contradictory interests. It is impossible not to be lost in awe at the contemplation of this chain of facts; the human mind cannot fail to acknowledge in them the strongest proofs of their being produced by infinite wisdom and unbounded power; and the devout philosopher can scarcely avoid considering with respect a little insect, endowed with faculties producing combinations, which human reason vainly attempts to imitate, and can scarcely understand.

PHYS.—I agree with you, that if instinct be supposed the result of organization, and that the first animal types were so created as to transmit their instincts invariably, generation after generation, it does offer a most triumphant and incontrovertible argument for the existence of an all-powerful intelligent Cause.—Even in the instance which led to this conversation, the instinct which carries salmon from the sea to the sources of rivers, it is only lately philosophers have discovered, that the impregnated eggs cannot produce young fishes independent of the influence of air; and thus an animal goes many hundred miles under the direction of an instinct, the use of which human reason has at length developed, and man is supplied with an abundant food by the result of a combination, in consequence of which a species is preserved.

POIET.—I do not understand, Halieus, your objections to the view I have adopted, which is sanctioned by the authority of a good ethic philosopher, Addison. Allowing the omnipresence and constant power of Deity, I do not see how you can avoid admitting his actual interference in all the phenomena of living nature.

HAL.—As I said before, I cannot _confute_ your view; but, upon this principle, gravitation and the motion of the planets round the sun, and all the other physical phenomena of the universe, would be owing to the immediate action of the Divinity. I prefer the view, which refers them to motion and properties, the results of general laws impressed on matter by Omnipotence. This view is, I think, simpler; but it is difficult to form any distinct opinion on so high and incomprehensible a subject, on which, perhaps, after all, it is wiser to confess our entire ignorance, and to bow down in humble adoration to the one incomprehensible Cause of all being.

POIET.—I agree with you in your last sentence, but I still adhere to my own view, and I hope you will not object to a favourite opinion of mine, that instincts are to animals what revelation is to man, intended to supply wants in their physical constitution, which in man are provided for by reason; and that revelation is to him as an instinct, teaching him what reason cannot—his religious duties, the undying nature of his intellectual part, and the relations of his conduct to eternal happiness and misery.

HAL.—“Davus sum, non Œdipus.” I will not attempt to discuss this view of yours, Poietes; but I think I may say, that all the instincts of animals seem to be connected with pleasure; and in man the feeling of love and the gratifying the appetites, which approach nearest to instincts, are likewise highly delightful, and perhaps there is no more pleasurable state of the human mind than when, with intense belief, it looks forward to another world and to a better state of existence, or is absorbed in the adoration of the supreme and eternal intelligence.

SIXTH DAY.

HALIEUS—POIETES—ORNITHER—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. Prepare 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 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 success—using three different flies for the top, middle, and bottom. I remember, that when I first saw Lord Somerville adopt this fashion, I thought there was fancy in it; but experience 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.

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 10lbs. 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 not, I think, 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 the hook, link, or line, failed you.

POIET.—It is the hook, which you see is broken, and 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 often. I now never use any hooks for salmon fishing, except those which I am sure have been made by O’Shaughnessy, of Limerick; for even those 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 30lbs. I will answer for its strength and temper: it will neither break nor bend.

POIET.—Whilst I am attaching your present, so kindly made, 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 ones. The first requisite in hook-making is to find good malleable iron of the softest and purest kind—such as is procured from the nails of old horse-shoes. This must be converted 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 he 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 flattened, and the polishing file applied to it; and by a turn of the wrist round a circular pincers, the necessary degree of curvature is given to it. The hook is then cut from the bar, heated red hot, by being kept for a moment in a charcoal 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 a 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 manufacturers 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° Fahrenheit, might be constantly 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.

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 to find, on my return, that you have all 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 Alness, 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 comparison, 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 same rivers to breed in which they were born, or where they have spawned before. And this could hardly happen unless they confined 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 limit almost as land; for fish do not willingly haunt _very_ deep water, which even in summer is of low temperature, approaching to 40°, and contains little or no vegetable food or insects, which the smaller fishes search for, and the larger fishes follow the smaller. It is however possible, that in winter, 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 that breathe water,—that separate air from water by their gills; but it seems probable, that, as the quality of the water is connected with their life and 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 smelling: to them each town, lane, or field, must have a particular scent. And I have seen even a blind horse, an animal in which the sense of smelling is less acute, evidently find his way by it to his master’s house and stable, which was, indeed, near a tan-yard. The state of parts of water, in the sea or great lakes, produced by the impregnations carried down by particular 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 bronchiæ of fishes is more invariable, and a migratory fish is less likely to be deceived. Yet in great floods, often connected 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 large 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 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 uncommon. 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 are usually shyer even than trout, and I never knew one in this season, that had been pricked even slightly, rise again at the artificial 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 that 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 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 in this river, the Galway fishermen resort to the practice of fishing with a naked hook, endeavouring to entangle it in the bodies of the fish; a most unartistlike 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 flowing, than when it is ebbing? 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; 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 never any on the surface of the water; and I imagine they take the gaudy fly, with its blue kingfisher and golden pheasant’s feathers, for a small fish.

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