cluding their natural habits, their external aspect, and their mode of capture. We regard our subject as one of deep and sustaining interest in a philosophical point of view, and of the highest and most immediate importance when considered in relation to the economical advantages derivable by the human race. We shall endeavour to combine with our immediate object, such miscellaneous information as we can collect from genuine sources, with a view to render this little essay more palatable to the general reader; and if any great deficiency in that department is observable, we hope it may in some measure be attributed to the very nature of this branch of natural history, the subjects of which, inhabiting another element from ourselves, have thus their on-goings too often veiled from mortal sight by a "world of waters"-which no eye can pierce, but the eye of HIM who called the light out of darkness, and who created the "heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that in them is."*

How much nobler and more soul sustaining are these combined pursuits of the angler and naturalist, than such as many worldly minded men do follow after, who either fretting with fevered care o'er

* In our brief exposition of the structure and physiology of fishes, we have mainly followed the masterly introduction prefixed by Baron Cuvier to his (and M. Valencienne's) great work,-the Histoire Naturelle des Poissons, now amounting to 14 vols. We have also availed ourselves occasionally of Mr. Yarrell's accurate and elegant work on British Fishes, and have moreover sought to refresh ourselves by turning in time of need to our own article, "Ichthyology," in Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. xii. p. 151,-to say nothing of the Essay on 66 Angling" in that work, which, as already mentioned on our fly leaf, forms the basis or but-end of the present publication.

hoarded heaps, know not that "Better is little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure, and trouble therewith,"-or wasting themselves and substance in riot and intemperance, forget how far sweeter is "a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred with the same."

Let them that list these pleasures then pursue,
And on their foolish fancies feed their fill;
So I the fields and meadows green may view,
And by the rivers fresh may walke at wille,
Among the dazies and the violets blue,
Red hyacinth and yellow daffodil,
Purple narcissus like the morning rayes,
Pale ganderglas, and azore culverkayes.

I count it better pleasure to behold
The goodly compasse of the lofty skie;
And in the midst thereof, like burning gold,
The flaming chariot of the world's great eye;
The wat'ry clouds that in the ayre uprol'd
With sundry kinds of painted colours flie;
And faire Aurora lifting up her head,
All blushing rise from old Tithonus' bed.

The hills and mountains raised from the plains,
The plains extended levell with the ground,
The ground divided into sundry vains,
The vains enclos'd with running rivers round,
The rivers making way thro' nature's chains,
With headlong course into the sea profound;
The surging sea beneath the vallies low,

The vallies sweet, and lakes that gently flow.

Oh! bright Winander, how thy far-stretching beauty lies before me, thy head o'er-canopied by loftiest mountains (gaze in that magic mirror, behold the vaulted sky, the breathless woods, the grey gigantic battlements of heaven), thine islands floating in deep cærulean calm like things entranced,

thy beaming spendour, as lessening from sight mid sweet umbrageous shores, thou seek'st thine ocean. of eternity! Why in this murky night of dark December dost thou revisit thus my soul's recesses? Why in the chambers of mine imagery art thou with all thy pomp of summer glory brought up uncalled before me? The lustre now grows dim, and fades away, but not on this green earth, on grassy bank or high uplifted mountain, can such effulgent gleams as those surround me. For why? Old man, the summer of thy youth made that portentous blaze. Father of light and life,

"Not without hope we suffer and we mourn."

93

CHAPTER III.

OF THE ANGLER'S FISHES IN PARTICULAR-THEIR
ASPECT, HABITS, AND MODES OF CAPTURE.

THIS gregarious fish is angled for with a worm or minnow. It is a bold biter during the warm months of the year, though very abstemious in the winter season. When a shoal is met with, great sport is frequently obtained. A small cork float is used, and the bait is hung at various depths, according to circumstances, a knowledge of which can

only be obtained by practice. In angling near the bottom, the bait should be frequently raised nearly to the surface, and then allowed gently to sink again. When the weather is cool and cloudy, with a ruffling breeze from the south, perch will bite during the whole day. The best hours towards the end of spring are from seven to eleven in the morning, and from two to six in the afternoon. In warm and bright summer weather, excellent times are from sunrise till six or seven in the morning, and from six in the evening till sunset.

The Perch is one of the most beautiful of the fresh water fishes of Europe, but is too familiarly known to need description. It inhabits both lakes and rivers, but shuns salt water. Pallas, however, is said to have stated in his Zoographia Russo-Asiatica (a work still unpublished), that about spawning time both Pike and Perch are found in a gulf of the Caspian Sea, about thirty verstes from the mouth of the Terek. The female deposits her eggs, united together by a viscid matter, in lengthened strings,-a peculiarity noticed by Aristotle. Spawning takes place in April and May, and the number of eggs sometimes amounts to near a million. The Perch occurs all over Europe, and in most of the northern districts of Asia. It is easily tamed, and if kept moist will live for a long time out of water. It sometimes attains to a great size, but the majority are smallish fishes. Pennant alludes to one said to have been taken in the Serpentine River, Hyde Park, which weighed nine pounds. But even one half of that weight would