Chapter VII: Part 7

HAL.—Because wisdom and order are found in all his works, and the parts of animals are always in harmony with each other, and always adapted to certain ends consistent with the analogy of nature; and a human head, human hands, and human mammæ, are wholly inconsistent with a fish’s tail. The human head is adapted for an erect posture, and in such a posture an animal with a fish’s tail could not swim; and a creature with lungs must be on the surface several times in a day—and the sea is an inconvenient breathing place; and hands are instruments of manufacture—and the depths of the ocean are little fitted for fabricating that mirror which our old prints gave to the mermaid. Such an animal, if created, could not long exist; and, with scarcely any locomotive powers, would be the prey of other fishes, formed in a manner more suited to their element. I have seen a most absurd fabrication of a mermaid, exposed as a show in London, said to have been found in the Chinese seas, and bought for a large sum of money. The head and bust of two different apes were fastened to the lower part of a kipper salmon, which had the fleshy fin, and all the distinct characters, of the _salmo salar_.

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

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

POIET.—In listening to your conversation we have forgotten our angling, and have lost some moments of fine cloudy weather.

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

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

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

POIET.—We have each caught a trout and two large chubs, and have had two or three runs besides—but we saw no huchos; and though several large grayling rose in one of the streams, and we tried to catch them by spinning the minnow in every possible way, yet they took no notice of our bait.

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

PHYS.—I think, in this part of the continent, the art of carrying and keeping fish is better understood than in England. Every inn has a box containing grayling, trout, carp, or char, into which water from a spring runs; and no one thinks of carrying or sending _dead_ fish for a dinner. A fish barrel full of cool water, which is replenished at every fresh source amongst these mountains, is carried on the shoulders of the fisherman. And the fish, when confined in wells, are fed with bullock’s liver, cut into fine pieces, so that they are often in better season in the tank or stew than when they were taken. I have seen trout, grayling, and char even, feed voraciously, and take their food almost from the hand. These methods of carrying and preserving fish have, I believe, been adopted from the monastic establishments. At Admondt, in Styria, attached to the magnificent monastery of that name, are abundant ponds and reservoirs for every species of fresh water fish; and the char, grayling, and trout are preserved in different waters—covered, enclosed, and under lock and key.

POIET.—I admire in this country not only the mode of preserving, carrying, and dressing fish, but I am delighted, generally, with the habits of life of the peasants, and with their manners. It is a country in which I should like to live; the scenery is so beautiful, the people so amiable and good-natured, and their attentions to strangers so marked by courtesy and disinterestedness.

PHYS.—They appear to me very amiable and good; but all classes seem to be little instructed.

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

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

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

PHYS.—I doubt this: the sphere of enjoyment, as well as of benevolence, is enlarged by education.

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

HAL.—Surely you cannot have a more religious, more moral, or more improved population than that of Scotland?

POIET.—Precisely so. In Scotland, education is not forced upon the people—it is sought for, and is connected with their forms of faith, acquired in the bosoms of their families, and generally pursued with a distinct object of prudence or interest: nor is that kind of education wanting in this country.

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

POIET.—Pardon me—there is not a cottage without a prayer book; and I am not sorry, that these innocent and happy men are not made active and tumultuous subjects of _King Press_, whom I consider as the most capricious, depraved, and unprincipled tyrant, that ever existed in England. Depraved—for it is to be bought by great wealth; capricious—because it sometimes follows, and sometimes forms, the voice of the lowest mob; and unprincipled—because, when its interests are concerned, it sets at defiance private feeling and private character, and neither regards their virtue, dignity, nor purity.

HAL.—My friends, you are growing warm. I know you differ essentially on this subject; but surely you will allow that the full liberty of the press, even though it sometimes degenerates into licentiousness, and though it may sometimes be improperly used by the influence of wealth, power, or private favour, is yet highly advantageous, and even essential to the existence of a free country; and, useful as it may be to the population, it is still more useful to the government, to whom, as expressing the voice of the people, though not always _vox Dei_, it may be regarded as oracular or prophetic.—But let us change our conversation, which is neither in time nor place.

POIET.—This river must be inexhaustible for sport: I have nowhere seen so many fish.

HAL.—However full a river may be of trout and grayling, there is a certain limit to the sport of the angler, if continuous fishing be adopted in the same pools. Every fish is in its turn made acquainted by diurnal habit with the artificial fly, and either taken or rendered cautious; so that, in a river fished much by one or two good anglers, many fish cannot be caught, except under peculiar circumstances of very windy, rainy, or cloudy weather, when many flies come on; or at night, or at the time the water is slightly coloured by a flood, or when fish change their haunts in consequence of a great inundation. In the Usk, in Monmouthshire, when it was very full of fish in the best fishing time, when the spring brown and dun flies were on the water, it was not usual for some excellent anglers, who composed a party of nine, and who fished in this river for ten continuous days, to catch more than two or three fish each person. But one day, when the water was coloured by a flood, in which case the artificial fly could not be distinguished by the fish from the natural fly, I caught twelve or fourteen of the same fish, that had been in the habit of refusing my flies for many days successively. This was in the end of March, 1809, when the flies always came on the water with great regularity; the blues in dark days, the browns in bright days, between twelve and two o’clock in the middle of the day. In rivers where the artificial fly has never been used, I believe all the fish will mistake good imitations for natural flies, and in their turn, to use an angler’s phrase, “taste the steel;” but even very imperfect imitations and coarse tackle, which are only successful at night or in turbid water, are sufficient to render fish cautious. This I am convinced of, by observing the difference of the habits of fish in strictly preserved streams, and in streams where even peasants have fished with the coarsest tackle. I might quote the Traun at Ischl, where the native fisherman used three or four of the coarsest flies on the coarsest hair links made of four or five or six hairs, and the Traun at Gmunden, where they are not allowed to fish. The fish that rose took with much more certainty at Gmunden than at Ischl.

At a time when many flies are on, particularly large ones, a few days of continuous fishing, even with a single rod, will soon make the sport indifferent in the best rivers; but the larger and the deeper the river the longer it continues, because fish change their stations occasionally, and pricked fish sometimes leave their haunts, which are occupied by others; and graylings are more disposed to change their places than trouts.

As instances of the difference in this respect between large and small rivers, I may quote the Vockla and the Agger in Upper Austria. The first of these rivers, when I fished in it in 1818, was full of trout and grayling, and I believe I was the first person, for at least many years, that had ever thrown an artificial fly upon it. It is a small stream, from eight to fifteen yards wide, and can every where be commanded by the double-handed rod, and is generally shallow. The first day that I fished in this stream, which was in the beginning of August, at every throw I hooked a fish, and I took out and restored again to their element in the course of a few hours more than one hundred and fifty trout and grayling. The next day I fished in the same places, but with a very different result: I caught only half a dozen large fish: the third morning, going over the same ground, I had great difficulty even to get a brace of fish for my dinner, and those, as well as I recollect, I caught by throwing in places which had not been fished before. I ought to mention, that the space of water where this experiment was made did not exceed half a mile in length. I shall now speak of the Agger, which is a much larger and deeper river than the Vockla, and cannot be commanded in any part by a double-handed rod, being at least from forty to sixty yards across. The first time I fished this river, I had the same kind of sport as in the Vockla; the second day, under the same favourable circumstances, there were fewer rises than on the first day, but still sufficient to give good sport; and it was the fourth day before it became difficult to catch a good dish of fish, and necessary to seek new water. The greater depth of the water, and the change of place of the fish, particularly the grayling, explain this, to say nothing of the greater number of fish which the larger river contained. I am, of course, speaking of one of the best periods of fly-fishing, when many large flies, of which imitations are easily found, have been on the water. In spring (a bad season for fly-fishing in high Alpine countries) I have thrown great varieties of flies on these two highly stocked streams, and have found it difficult to get a brace of fish for the table, as the trout and grayling were all lying at the bottom, not expecting any _winged food_ at this season.

A river that runs into a large lake affords, at its junction with the lake, by far the best place for continuous angling, particularly for trout in autumn. The fish are constantly running up the river for the purpose of spawning, and every day offers a succession of new shoals, of which many will take the fly; I say _many_, because at this season some of the fish, particularly the females, are capricious, and refuse a bait, of which, under other circumstances they are greedy. I may say the same with respect to the exit of a river from a lake, to which successions of fishes resort, and though trout are found abundantly in such places, yet they are often still better places for grayling when these fish exist in the lake, the tendency of grayling being rather, as I said on another occasion, to descend than to ascend waters, whilst that of the trout is the contrary. The same principles apply to salmon and sea-trout fishing, which run up rivers from basins of the sea: the best situations for continuous angling are those parts of the river where there is a succession of fishes from the tide.

POIET.—You spoke just now of peasants fishing with the fly in Austria: I thought this art was entirely English; and though I have travelled much, I do not recollect ever to have seen fly-fishing practised by native anglers abroad.

HAL.—I assure you there are fishers with the artificial fly in different parts of Switzerland, Germany, and Illyria, though always with rude tackle, and usually upon rapid streams. Besides the Traun I can mention the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Drave, as rivers where I have seen fish caught with rude imitations of flies used by native anglers. In Italy, where trout and grayling are very rare, and only found amongst the highest mountain chains, I have never seen any fly-fishers, but near Ravenna I have sometimes seen anglers for frogs, who threw their bait exactly as we throw a fly, and caught great numbers of these animals: and the nature of their apparatus surprised me more than their method of using it. Instead of a hook and bait they employed a small dry frog, tied to a long piece of twine, the fore legs of which projected like two hooks, and this they threw at a distance, by means of a long rod. The frogs rose like fish and gorged the small dry frog, by the legs of which they were pulled out of the water. I was informed by one of these fishermen, that he sometimes took 200 frogs in this way in a morning, and that the frogs never swallowed any bait when still or apparently dead, but caught at whatever was moving or appeared alive on the surface of the water; so that this amphibia feeds like a nobler animal, the eagle, only on living prey.

POIET.—You say trout are rare in Italy, yet on Ash-wednesday, a great day for the consumption of fish in Rome, I remember to have seen some large trout, which, I was told, were from the Velino, above the falls of Terni.

HAL.—I once went almost to the source of this river, above Rieti, in the hopes of catching trout, but I was unsuccessful. I saw some taken by nets, but the fish were too few, and the river too foul, from the deposition of calcareous matter, to render it a good stream for the angler. In this journey I saw some trout in brooks in the Sabine country, that I dare say might have been taken by the fly, but they were small, and like the brook trout of England. In these streams, as well as in the Velino and other torrents, I found the water-ouzel, which, as far as my knowledge extends, is always a companion of the trout, and I believe feeds much upon the same larvæ or water-flies.

ORN.—These singular little birds, as I have witnessed, walk under water. I have often watched them running beneath the surface of the sides of streams, and passing between stones. I conclude they were then in the act of searching for, or feeding upon larvæ.

HAL.—I suppose so, and I hope Ornither will shoot one to give us an opportunity of examining the contents of their stomachs, and of knowing with certainty the nature of their food.

PHYS.—The char[8] is a most beautiful and excellent fish, and is, of course, a fish of prey. Is he not an object of sport to the angler?

HAL.—They generally haunt deep cool lakes, and are seldom found at the surface till late in the autumn. When they are at the surface, however, they will take either fly or minnow. I have known some caught in both these ways; and have myself taken a char, even in summer, in one of those beautiful, small, deep lakes in the Upper Tyrol, near Nazereit; but it was where a cool stream entered from the mountain; and the fish did not rise, but swallowed the artificial fly under water. The char is always in its colour a very brilliant fish, but in different countries there are many varieties in the tint. I do not remember ever to have seen more beautiful fish than those of Aussee, which, when in perfect season, have the lower fins and the belly of the brightest vermilion, with a white line on the outside of the pectoral, ventral, anal, and lower part of the caudal fin, and with vermilion spots, surrounded by the bright olive shade of the sides and back: the dorsal fin in the char has 11 spines, the pectoral 14, the ventral 9, the anal 10, and the caudal 20. I have fished for them in many lakes, without success, both in England and Scotland, and also amongst the Alps; and I am told the only sure way of taking them is by sinking a line with a bullet, and a hook having a live minnow attached to it, in the deep water which they usually haunt; and in this way, likewise, I have no doubt the _umbla_, or _ombre chevalier_, might be taken.

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

HAL.—It is very like char in form, but is without spots, and has a white and silvery belly. On the table, its flesh cuts white or cream-colour, and it is exceedingly like char in flavour. Feb. 11, 1827, one was brought me from the lake of Bourget, in Savoy; it was said to be small for this fish; it was 15 inches long, and 7½ in circumference. In the dorsal fin there were 12 spines, in the pectoral 9, in the ventral 8, in the anal 11, and in the caudal 24.

POIET.—Is it found in this country?

HAL.—From some descriptions I have heard of certain species of the salmo found in the Maun See, Traun See, and Leopoldstadt See, I think it is. Bloch says, that it is peculiar to the lakes of Geneva and Neufchatel; but what I have just said must convince you of the inaccuracy of this statement, as I dare say the fish exists in other deep waters of a like character amongst the Alps. It is a fish closely allied to the char, and congenerous both in form and habits.

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

HAL.—It is a fish known in England by the name of _shelley_, or fresh water herring; in Wales, by that of _guinead_; in Ireland, by that of _pollan_; and in Scotland, by that of _vengis_. In colour it is most like a grayling, but with broader and larger scales: it is common in the large lakes of most Alpine countries, and is known at Geneva by the name of _ferra_; and I believe that the _salmo ceruleus_, or _wartmann_ of Bloch, or the _gang-fisch_ of the lake of Constante, from a comparison that I made of it with the _ferra_, is a variety of the same fish. It sometimes is as large as 2lbs.; and when quite fresh, and well fried or boiled, is an exceedingly good fish, and calvers like a grayling. The laveret of different lakes has appeared to me to vary in the number of the spines in the fins. One, brought me from the lake of Zurich, 13 inches long, and 8 inches in girth, had 12 spines in the dorsal fin, 15 in the pectoral fins, 11 in the ventral, 13 in the anal, and 18 in the caudal. The gang-fisch, from the lake of Constanz, which was of a bluer colour, but, I think decidedly, only a variety of the same fish, was 7¾ inches long, and 4 in girth, had 12 spines in the dorsal fin, 15 in the pectoral, 11 in the ventral, 12 in the anal, and 18 in the caudal. A laveret, from the Traun See, had 12 spines in the dorsal fin, 17 in the pectoral, 13 in the ventral fin, 12 in the anal fin, and 24 in the caudal fin. One from the Hallstadt See was a larger and broader fish, but did not differ from the laveret, of the Traun See, except in having two spines less in the tail.

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

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

AT TABLE.

ORN.—Now the hucho is dressed, and on the same table with other species of the salmo, I perceive his peculiarities more distinctly; and, in addition to those you have mentioned, he appears to me to have a stronger upper jaw, and a larger projection of bone below the orbit of the eye.

HAL.—He has; and you will find a similar character in the pike and perch, and, I believe, in most fishes of prey; and the use of it seems to be, to strengthen the fulcrum of the lever on which the lower jaw moves, so as to afford the means of greater strength to the whole muscular apparatus, by means of which the fish seizes his prey.

POIET.—These fishes, then, are analogous to the predatory animals of the feline genus, which have this part of the head exceedingly strong; and it is here that the craniologists or phrenologists fix the organ of courage: does not this extensive chain of analogies offer an argument in favour of this long agitated and generally unpopular doctrine?

PHYS.—In my opinion, it offers, like most of the facts which have been brought forward to prove the truths of the view of Gall and Spurzheim, an argument rather unfavourable, when thoroughly and minutely examined.

POIET.—How?

PHYS.—In these rapacious and predatory animals, the organization of the head must be connected with the functions of the jaws, as the construction of the shoulder-blade must be related to the use of the fore leg, which, being intended to strike and seize by talons, must have a powerful support and a strong bony apparatus in the shoulder, which might as well be called the organ of courage as the projection below the frontal bone: but these animals have no more what is called courage in man, than they have what is called reason: they face danger when they are hungry, but almost always fly when their appetite is satisfied: a hen, in defending her chickens against a powerful dog, or the game cock, in fighting for the female, or the timid stag, at the time of the sexual intercourse, shows quite as much of this quality as the most ferocious royal tiger. Courage is the result of strong passions or strong motives; and in man it usually results from the love of glory or the fear of shame; and it appears to me a perfectly absurd idea, that of connecting it with an organ, which is merely intended to assist the predatory habits and the mastication of a carnivorous animal.

HAL.—I agree with Physicus in this view of the subject. I once heard a physiologist of some reputation deducing an argument in favour of craniology from the form of the skull of the beaver, which he called a constructive animal, and contended, that there was something of the same character in the skulls of distinguished architects: now, the skull of the beaver is so formed, that he is able to use his jaws for cutting down the trees with which he makes his dam; and if this analogy were correct, the architect ought unquestionably to employ his teeth for the same purpose; and though I have known distinguished men, who have been in the habit of using knives for cutting furniture with a sort of nervous restlessness of hand, I do not recollect to have heard of the teeth being employed in the same way; and I think it would be quite as correct, to find the architectural or constructive organ in the opposite part of the body, the tail, as the beaver makes a more ingenious use of this part than even of his mouth. Pray, have you ever observed, Poietes, any particular protuberance in the nether parts of any of our distinguished architects?

POIET.—I am not a craniologist; but I would have the doctrine overturned by facts, and not by ridicule; and I have certainly seen some remarkable instances, which were favourable to the system.

HAL.—My experience is entirely on the opposite side; and I once saw a distinguished craniologist in error on a point, which he considered as the most decided. He was shown two children, one of whom was possessed of great mathematical acquirements, the other of extraordinary musical taste. With the utmost confidence he pronounced judgment, and was mistaken. It appeared to me, that, whilst he was examining the two heads, he hummed an air, which, being out of tune, was not responded to by the musical child; but somehow struck the fancy of the mathematical one.

ORN.—This hucho is a very good fish, and, indeed, I can praise all the varieties of the salmon on the table that I have yet tasted.

PHYS.—Amongst them, I prefer the char, which, I think, is even better than the best fresh salmon I ever tasted.

POIET.—This char is surprisingly red and full of curd; I wonder at its fat: It comes from the Grundtl See, which is a high Alpine lake, covered with ice more than half the year: what food can the fish find in so pure and cold a water?

HAL.—Minnows and small chubs are found in this lake; and the flies which haunt it in summer have been aquatic larvæ in the autumn, winter, and spring; and there are usually great quantities of small shell fish, which live in the deeper parts of this water; so that char may find food even in winter; and cold, or the repose to which it leads, seems favourable to the development or conservation of fat. Most of the polar animals (the whale, moose, seal, and white bear, for instance) are loaded with this substance; and the salmon of the Arctic Ocean are remarkable for their quantity of curd: those that run up the rivers in Russia from the White Sea are said to be fatter and better, than those caught in the streams which run into the Baltic.

ORN.—I agree with Physicus in his praise of the char: we are indebted to you for an excellent entertainment.

HAL.—At Lintz, on the Danube, I could have given you a fish dinner of a different description, which you might have liked as a variety. The four kinds of perch, the _spiegel carpfen_, and the _siluris glanis_; all good fish, and which I am sorry we have not in England, where I doubt not they might be easily naturalized, and they would form an admirable addition to the table in inland counties. Since England has become Protestant, the cultivation of fresh water fish has been much neglected. The _burbot_, or lotte, which already exists in some of the streams tributary to the Trent, and which is a most admirable fish, might be diffused without much difficulty; and nothing could be more easy than to naturalize the _spiegel carpfen_ and _siluris_; and I see no reason why the _perca lucio perca_ and _zingel_ should not succeed in some of our clear lakes and ponds, which abound in coarse fish. The new Zoölogical Society, I hope, will attempt something of this kind; and it will be a better object than introducing birds and beast of prey—though I have no objection to any source of rational amusement or philosophical curiosity.

POIET.—A fish dinner such as you have just described, combined with one such as we have enjoyed to-day, might, I think, be made an interesting experimental lecture on natural history. The analogies of the different species and genera of fishes, so distinct in the form of their organs, are likewise marked in the appearance and taste of their flesh. The salmon and the char may be regarded as the generic types of the salmo. By trout, which have sometimes red and sometimes white flesh, they are connected with the grayling and hucho. By the grayling the trout is connected with the laveret, and by the laveret the genus salmo is connected with the carp genus. The char is immediately connected with the grayling, and laveret by the umbula. By the sea trout the salmon is connected with the trout; and by the hucho, with the pike and perch families.

HAL.—We will arrange a dinner of this kind in England, and by means of it follow the analogies of salt and fresh water fishes. But the time for our parting is almost arrived.—Let us drink a glass each of this old wine of the Danube to our next happy meeting, and go and take a last look of the Fall of Traun, whilst our carriages are preparing.

[_They walk to the rock above the Fall of the Traun._]

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

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

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

HAL.—The three small lakes and the two larger ones, which are in fact its reservoirs, are the cause of this. The Gründtl See furnishes its principal stream, and this lake is fed by two others—Töplitz See and Lahngen See; and the tributary streams, which unite at Aussee, from Alten Aussee and Oden See, though one is blue and the other yellow, yet combine to give a tint, which is nearly the same as that from the stream of the Gründtl See, and which the river retains throughout its course Yet I have seen even this river very foul, but only in a part of its course, below Ischel. I was once at that place, when the thunder storm of a night having washed the dust of the roads into the river, it was extremely turbid from Ischel to the Traun See. It rendered the upper part of this large lake coloured; but, notwithstanding this, the river came from the lower part of it perfectly clear, and I caught fish in it there with a fly, which, at its entrance into the lake was quite impossible.

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

HAL.—I certainly have often thought upon the subject, and I have made some observations and _one_ experiment in relation to it. I will give you my opinion with pleasure, and, as far as I know, they have not been brought forward in any of the works on the properties of water, or on its consideration as a chemical element. The purest water with which we are acquainted is undoubtedly that which falls from the atmosphere. Having touched air alone, it can contain nothing but what it gains from the atmosphere, and it is distilled without the chance of those impurities, which may exist in the vessels used in an artificial operation. We cannot well examine the water precipitated from the atmosphere, as rain, without collecting it in vessels, and all artificial contact gives more or less of contamination; but in snow, melted by the sunbeams, that has fallen on glaciers, themselves formed from frozen snow, water may be regarded as in its state of greatest purity. Congelation expels both salts and air from water, whether existing below, or formed in, the atmosphere; and in the high and uninhabited regions of glaciers, there can scarcely be any substances to contaminate. Removed from animal and vegetable life, they are even above the mineral kingdom; and though there are instances in which the rudest kind of vegetation (of the fungus or mucor kind) is even found upon snows, yet this is a rare occurrence; and red snow, which is occasioned by it, is an extraordinary and not a common phenomenon towards the pole, and on the highest mountains of the globe. Having examined the water formed from melted snow on glaciers in different parts of the Alps, and having always found it of the same quality, I shall consider it as pure water, and describe its characters. Its colour, when it has any depth, or when a mass of it is seen through, is bright blue; and, according to its greater or less depth of substance, it has more or less of this colour: as its insipidity, and its other physical qualities, are not at this moment objects of your inquiry, I shall not dwell upon them. In general, in examining lakes and masses of water in high mountains, their colour is of the same bright azure. And Captain Parry states, that the water on the Polar ice has the like beautiful tint. When vegetables grow in lakes, the colour becomes nearer the sea green, and as the quantity of impregnation from their decay increases—greener, yellowish green, and at length, when the vegetable extract is large in quantity—as in countries where peat is found—yellow, and even brown. To mention instances, the Lake of Geneva, fed from sources (particularly the higher Rhone) formed from melting snow, is blue; and the Rhone pours from it, dyed of the deepest azure, and retains partially this colour till it is joined by the Soane, which gives to it a greener hue. The Lake of Morat, on the contrary, which is fed from a lower country, and from less pure sources, is grass green. And there is an illustrative instance in some small lakes fed from the same source, in the road from Inspruck to Stutgard, which I observed in 1815 (as well as I recollect) between Nazareit and Reiti. The highest lake fed by melted snows in March, when I saw it, was bright blue. It discharged itself by a small stream into another, into which a number of large pines had been blown by a winter storm, or fallen from some other cause: in this lake its colour was blue green. In a third lake, in which there were not only pines and their branches, but likewise other decaying vegetable matter, it had a tint of faded grass green; and these changes had occurred in a space not much more than a mile in length. These observations I made in 1815: on returning to the same spot twelve years after, in August and September, I found the character of the lakes entirely changed. The pine wood washed into the second lake had disappeared; a large quantity of stones and gravel, washed down by torrents, or detached by an avalanche, supplied their place: there was no perceptible difference of tint in the two upper lakes; but the lower one, where there was still some vegetable matter, seemed to possess a greener hue. The same principle will apply to the Scotch and Irish rivers, which, when they rise or issue from pure rocky sources, are blue, or bluish green; and when fed from peat bogs, or alluvial countries, yellow, or amber-coloured, or brown—even after they have deposited a part of their impurities in great lakes. Sometimes, though rarely, mineral impregnations give colour to water: small streams are sometimes green or yellow from ferruginous depositions. Calcareous matters seldom affect their colour, but often their transparency, when deposited, as is the case with the Velino at Terni, and the Anio at Trivoli; but I doubt if pure saline matters, which are in themselves white, ever change the tint of water.

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

HAL.—I think probably on vegetable matter, and, perhaps, partially, on two elementary principles, iodine and brome, which it certainly contains, though these are possibly the results of decayed marine vegetables. These give a yellow tint, when dissolved in minute portions in water, and this, mixed with the blue of pure water, would occasion sea green. I made, many years ago, being on the _Mer de Glace_, an experiment on this subject. I threw a small quantity of iodine, a substance then recently discovered, into one of those deep blue basins of water, which are so frequent on that glacier, and, diffusing it as it dissolved with a stick, I saw the water change first to sea green in colour, then to grass green, and lastly to yellowish green: I do not, however, give this as a proof, but only as a fact favourable to my conjecture.

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

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

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

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

PHYS.—I felt something like what you described, and were I convinced that in the cultivation of the amusement, these feelings would increase, I would devote myself to it with passion; but, I fear, in my case this is impossible. Ah! could I recover any thing like that freshness of mind, which I possessed at twenty-five, and which, like the dew of the dawning morning, covered all objects and nourished all things that grew, and in which they were more beautiful even than in mid-day sunshine,—what would I not give!—All that I have gained in an active and not unprofitable life. How well I remember that delightful season, when, full of power, I sought for power in others; and power was sympathy, and sympathy power;—when the dead and the unknown, the great of other ages and of distant places, were made, by the force of the imagination, my companions and friends;—when every voice seemed one of praise and love; when every flower had the bloom and odour of the rose; and every spray or plant seemed either the poet’s laurel, or the civic oak—which appeared to offer themselves as wreaths to adorn my throbbing brow. But, alas! this cannot be; and even you cannot have _two springs_ in life—though I have no doubt you have fishing days, in which the feelings of youth return, and that your autumn has a more _vernal_ character than mine.

POIET.—I do not think Halieus had ever any season, except a perpetual and gentle spring; for the tones of his mind have been always so quiet, it has been so little scorched by sunshine, and so little shaken by winds, that, I think, it may be compared to that sempivernal climate fabled of the Hesperides, where the same trees produced at once buds, leaves, blossoms, and fruits.

HAL.—Nay, my friends! spare me a little, spare my gray hairs. I have not perhaps abused my youth so much as some of my friends, but all things that you have known, I have known; and if I have not been so much scorched by the passions from which so many of my acquaintances have suffered, I owe it rather to the constant employment of a laborious profession, and to the exertions called for by the hopes, wants, and wishes of a rising family, than to any merits of my own, either moral or constitutional. For my health, I may thank my ancestors, after my God, and I have not squandered what was so bountifully given; and though I do not expect, like our arch-patriarch, Walton, to number ninety years and upwards, yet, I hope, as long as I can enjoy in a vernal day the warmth and light of the sunbeams, still to haunt the streams—following the example of our late venerable friend, the President of the Royal academy,[9] in company with whom, when he was an octogenarian, I have thrown the fly, caught trout, and enjoyed a delightful day of angling and social amusement, in the shady green meadows by the bright clear streams of the Wandle.

ADDITIONAL NOTES.

(_On the par, page 75._)

The author, in supposing that the par may be produced from a cross between the river trout and the sea trout, does not mean to attach any importance to this idea. The fish differs so little from the common trout, that it may be questioned, whether it is not more entitled to the character of a variety than of a species. In many rivers on the continent, the author has seen small trout with olive or brown marks, like those of the British par; and a friend informs him, that he has caught fish of the same kind in the streams connected with the Lake of Geneva. In rivers, flowing into the Danube, these small fish are very common; but, as well as he remembers, their marks are pale, or yellowish-brown, or olive, and not dark or blue like those of our par. The salmon does not belong to any of these localities, but the hucho haunts the tributary streams of the Danube. The smelts, or young of the salmo hucho, and sea trout, and lake trout, are all distinguished by the _uniform_ dark colour of the back, and the silvery whiteness of the belly. He does not remember to have seen any of the streaked, or par varieties of trout in rivers, in which there was only _one_ species, or variety of large salmo. The mottled colour of the skin is, he thinks, the strongest argument in favour of this little fish, being from a cross of two varieties, or races, which may be the case, and yet the fish be capable of breeding, and gaining this character of a peculiar variety; and he supposes different kinds of pars may be produced by crosses of the sea trout, the hucho, the lake trout, with the river trouts, or perhaps of the salmon, and this would account for their great numbers, and the various tints of the marks on their _sides_. If the hucho, as he believes, generally spawns late in the winter, it may sometimes meet with trout spawning at the same time. He has seen salmon and trout in the Tweed in a similar state of maturity at the same period; and, in 1816, he remembers, that he took large female salmon, that had the period of parturition protracted as late as March.

(_On the scolaphax, page 124._)

I shall say a few words on the congeners of this bird (the solitary snipe,) and on the three varieties so much better known in Europe. The woodcock feeds indiscriminately upon earthworms, small beetles, and various kinds of larvæ, and its stomach sometimes contains seeds, which I suspect have been taken up in boring amongst the excrements of cattle; yet the stomach of this bird has something of the gizzard character, though not so much as that of the land-rail, which I have found half filled with seeds of grasses, and even containing corn, mixed with may-bugs, earth-worms, grasshoppers, and caterpillars. The woodcock, I believe, breeds habitually only in high northern latitudes, yet there are woods in England, particularly one in Sussex, near the borders of Hampshire, in which one or two couple of these birds, it is said, may always be found in summer. I suspect these woodcocks are from the offspring of birds which had paired for their passage, but being detained by an accident happening to one of them, staid and raised a young brood in England, and the young ones probably had their instincts altered by the accidents of their being born in England, and being in a place well supplied with food. It is not improbable, that they likewise raised young ones, and that the habit of staying has become hereditary. There can be no doubt, that woodcocks are very constant to their local attachments; woodcocks, that have been preserved in a particular wood for a winter, always return to it, if possible, the next season. Many woodcocks breed in Norway and Sweden in the great, extensive, and moist pine woods, filled with bogs and morasses, which cover these wild countries, but probably a still greater number breed further north, in Lapland, Finland, Russia, and Siberia. It is I believe a fable, that they ever raise their young habitually in the high Alpine or mountainous countries of the central or southern parts of Europe. These countries indeed in summer are very little fitted for their feeding; they cannot bore where it is either dry or frosty, and the glacier, as well as the arid sand or rock, are equally unfitted for their haunts. They leave the north with the first frost, and travel slowly south till they come to their accustomed winter quarters; they do not usually make a quick voyage, but fly from wood to wood, reposing and feeding on their journey: they prefer for their haunts, woods near marshes or morasses; they hide themselves under thick bushes in the day, and fly abroad to feed in the dusk of the evening. A laurel, or a holly-bush, is a favourite place for their repose: the thick and varnished leaves of these trees prevents the radiation of heat from the soil, and they are less affected by the refrigerating influence of a clear sky, so that they afford a warm seat for the woodcock. Woodcocks usually begin to fly north on the first approach of spring, and their flights are generally longer, and their rests fewer, at this season than in the autumn.

In the autumn they are driven from the north to the south by the want of food, and they stop wherever they can find food. In the spring, there is the influence of another powerful instinct added to this, the sexual feeling. They migrate in pairs, and pass as speedily as possible to the place where they are likely to find food, and to raise their young, and of which the old birds have already had the experience of former years. Scarcely any woodcocks winter in any part of Germany. In France there are a few found, particularly in the southern provinces, and in Normandy and Brittany. The woods of England, especially of the west and south, contain always a certain quantity of woodcocks, but there are far more in the moist soil and warmer climate of Ireland; but in the woods of southern Italy and Greece, near marshes, they are far more abundant; and they extend in quantities over the Greek Islands, Asia Minor, and northern Africa.