ranges of elevated hills, or that make their way through the cavities of calcareous strata. How delightful in the early spring, after the dull and tedious time of winter, when the frosts disappear and the sunshine warms the earth and waters, to wander forth by some clear stream, to see the leaf bursting from the purple bud, to scent the odours of the bank perfumed by the violet, and enamelled, as it were, with the primrose and the daisy; to wander upon the fresh turf below the shade of trees, whose bright blossoms are filled with the music of the bee; and on the surface of the waters to view the gaudy flies sparkling like animated gems in the sunbeams, whilst the bright and beautiful trout is watching them from below; to hear the twittering of the water-birds, who, alarmed at your approach, rapidly hide themselves beneath the flowers and leaves of the water-lily; and as the season advances, to find all these objects changed for others of the same kind, but better and brighter, till the swallow and the trout contend as it were for the gaudy May-fly, and till in pursuing your amusement in the calm and balmy evening, you are serenaded by the songs of the cheerful thrush and melodious nightingale, performing the offices of paternal love, in thickets ornamented with the rose and woodbine."

Assuredly, this Salmonia' is a delightful book, even for a boy to read. It is a rare merit to place before the mind simple and spirited pictures of every-day objects, and a still rarer to trace the philosophy of the external world, with a keen and analytical spirit, entirely divested of all the pedantry of scientific pretension. What a pretty passage is the following, assigning the cause of the migration of fishes and birds, with a clearness which, almost, removes every doubt :

"I fear I am not entomologist enough to follow the life of the Mayfly, but I shall willingly have my attention directed to its habits. Indeed, I have often regretted that sportsmen were not fonder of zoology; they have so many opportunities, which other persons do not possess, of illustrating the origin and qualities of some of the most curious forms of animated nature; the causes and character of the migrations of animals; their relations to each other, and their place and order in the general scheme of the universe. It has always appeared to me, that the two great sources of change of place of animals, was the providing of food for themselves, and resting places and food for their young. The great supposed migrations of herrings from the poles to the temperate zone, have appeared to me to be only the approach of successive shoals from deep to shallow water, for the purpose of spawning. The migrations of salmon and trout are evidently for the purpose of depositing their ova, or of finding food after they have spawned. Swallows, and bee-eaters, decidedly pursue flies over half a continent; the scolopax or snipe tribe, in like manner, search for worms and larvæ,-flying from those countries where either frost or dryness prevents them from boring,-making generally small flights at a time, and resting on their travels where they find food. And a journey from England to Africa, is no more for an animal that can fly, with the wind, one hundred miles in an hour, than a journey for a Londoner to his seat in a distant province. And the migrations of smaller fishes or birds always occasions the migration of larger ones, that prey on them. Thus, the seal follows the salmon, in summer, to

the mouths of rivers; the hake follows the herring and pilchard; hawks are seen in great quantities, in the month of May, coming into the east of Europe, after quails and landrails; and locusts are followed by numerous birds, that, fortunately for the agriculturist, make them their prey."

Again, how eloquent, and yet how simple, is the burst about the

swallow :

"I delight in this living landscape! The swallow is one of my favourite birds, and a rival of the nightingale; for he glads my sense of seeing, as much as the other does my sense of hearing. He is the joyous prophet of the year-the harbinger of the best season: he lives a life of enjoyment amongst the loveliest forms of nature: winter is unknown to him; and he leaves the green meadows of England in autumn, for the myrtle and orange groves of Italy, and for the palms of Africa :-he has always objects of pursuit, and his success is secure. Even the beings selected for his prey are poetical, beautiful and transient. The ephemeræ are saved by his means from a slow and lingering death in the evening, and killed in a moment, when they have known nothing of life but pleasure. He is the constant destroyer of insects, the friend of man; and with the stork and the ibis, may be regarded as a sacred bird. His instinct, which gives him his appointed seasons, and which teaches him always when and where to move, may be regarded as flowing from a Divine Source; and he belongs to the Oracles of Nature, which speak the awful and intelligible language of a present Deity."

The practical directions for taking trout in the Colne, and salmon in Loch Maree, and grayling in the Clun, are, however, of little use to the million. Wherever there are fish worth angling for, the rivers are preserved. The tackle may be of the best, and the hopes of the young fishermen of the warmest; but in the open streams he will find no fish, and in the enclosed grounds he will get no footing. Even in the days of Cotton, the angler was a persecuted being: for, says he, "there are some covetous, rigid persons, whose souls hold no sympathies with those of the innocent anglers, having either got to be lords of royalties, or owners of lands adjoining to rivers;—and these do, by some apted clownish nature and education for the purpose, insult and domineer over the innocent angler, beating him, breaking his rod, or at least taking it from him." Heavens! what perils surround the solitary trespasser in search of a trout! But since the time of Cotton, these dangers are prodigiously multiplied. In England, even amongst the wildest fastnesses of nature, the rights of property are poked into your face; and some caution, whose neglect involves "the utmost rigours of the law," scares even the purposeless rambler from his dream of picturesque beauty. As to strolling anglers, who do not arrive in a light carriage with two horses, the rich hate them, execrating the very memory of happy old Izaak, who profanely says, "there be many that have forty times our estates, that would give the greatest part of it to be healthful and cheerful like us, who, with the expence of a little money, have eat and drank, and laughed, and angled and sung, and slept securely; and rose next day, and cast

away care, and sung and laughed, and angled again: which are blessings rich men cannot purchase with all their money." All this is gall and wormwood to a bloated proprietor, who hates the rest of mankind, because they are happy without many lands; and is thus resolved to abridge their pleasures by extending the rights of property, as far as they will stretch. Such grasping fellows, as Goldsmith, for instance, who says,

Creation's heir-the world, the world is mine!

-and old Izaak again, who impudently affirms, that the owner of the pleasant meadow in which he was fishing, had not leisure to take the sweet content that the stranger, who pretended to no title in them, then took in his fields,-such fellows compel men of large properties to claim their own, by building walls round their acres, and stopping up the access to their rivers, and forbidding the wanderers, even in the most rugged and untameable paths, to give up an hour to the free impulse of beautiful scenery. Gentle reader!-come with us into Derbyshire. You may take your fishing-rod if you please, for we shall walk by the side of Cotton's own river, the Dove, for six or seven miles. We will get off the coach at Ashbourn. You remember Canning's lines :

So down thy hill, romantic Ashbourn, glides
The Derby dilly, carrying six insides.

When Cotton travelled on this road, there was no conveyance but that of pack-horses. Go not into Ashbourn church-beautiful as it is-for you will there see that the monument upon which the first sculptor of our day has principally built his fame, is a plagiarism. Cross the road opposite the church, and ascend the pathway. You will see the little river Dove sparkling along through a valley of no ordinary beauty, and losing itself in the hills (Cotton calls them mountains) which bound the prospect. A pretty lane leads you through the village of Mapleton, where there is an ancient "alehouse," at which you may be sure that Cotton and Walton have cooked a trout. We are inclined to think, that the invitation upon its sign (" the Gate") was indited by one or other of the poetical anglers:—

This Gate hangs well,

And hinders none;
Refresh thyself,

And travel on.

You will now quickly come upon the river, for the path-way leads along its bank. The stream itself is of the most interesting character, now rattling away over a pebbly bottom, and now hushing itself in the slowest deeps. Be careful how you give yourself up to the enthusiasm of the moment, without heed to your footsteps; for ever and anon a little rivulet gushes from the hills into the stream, and you must ford your way carefully over the stepping-stones, which scarcely peep above the surface. How enchanting is this brake through which we must clear our path! The hawthorn has not yet lost all its flowers, and the blackbird still vigorously sings, though the summer heats are warning him to be mute. You may try your "lady-fly," if you think there is a chance for you; while we will turn again to our Salmonia.' The "two magpies" that are chattering on that green

knoll, offer an omen to the fisherman; and Sir Humphrey has a pretty bit upon such matters :

"POIET.-I hope we shall have another good day to-morrow, for the clouds are red in the west.

"PHYS.-I have no doubt of it, for the red has a tint of purple. “HAL.-Do you know why this tint portends fine weather?

PHYS.-The air when dry, I believe, refracts more red, or heatmaking, rays; and as dry air is not perfectly transparent, they are again reflected in the horizon. I have generally observed a coppery or yellow sunset to foretel rain; but, as an indication of wet weather approaching, nothing is more certain than a halo round the moon, which is produced by the precipitated water; and the larger the circle, the nearer the clouds, and consequently the more ready to fall. "HAL.-I have often observed that the old proverb is correct

A rainbow in the morning is the shepherd's warning;
A rainbow at night is the shepherd's delight.

Can you explain this omen?

"PHYS.-A rainbow can only occur when the clouds containing, or depositing, the rain are opposite the sun,-and in the evening the rainbow is in the east, and in the morning in the west; and as our heavy rains, in this climate, are usually brought by the westerly wind, a rainbow in the west indicates that the bad weather is on the road, by the wind, to us; whereas the rainbow in the east proves, that the rain in these clouds is passing from us.

"POIET.-I have often observed, that when the swallows fly high, fine weather is to be expected or continued; but when they fly low, and close to the ground, rain is almost surely approaching. Can you account for this?

"HAL.-Swallows follow the flies and gnats, and flies and gnats usually delight in warm strata of air; and as warm air is lighter, and usually moister, than cold air, when the warm strata of air are high, there is chance of moisture being thrown down from them by the mixture with cold air; but when the warm and moist air is close to the surface, it is almost certain that, as the cold air flows down into it, a deposition of water will take place.

"POIET. I have often seen sea gulls assemble on the land, and have almost always observed that very stormy and rainy weather was approaching. I conclude that these animals, sensible of a current of air approaching from the ocean, retire to the land to shelter themselves from the storm.

"ORN.-No such thing. The storm is their element; and the little petrel enjoys the heaviest gale, because, living on the smaller sea insects, he is sure to find his food in the spray of a heavy waveand you may see him flitting above the edge of the highest surge. I believe that the reason of this migration of sea gulls, and other sea birds, to the land, is their security of finding food: and they may be observed, at this time, feeding greedily on the earth worms and larvæ, driven out of the ground by severe floods: and the fish, on which they prey in fine weather in the sea, leave the surface and go deeper in storms. The search after food, as we agreed on a former

occasion, is the principal cause why animals change their places. The different tribes of the wading birds always migrate when rain is about to take place; and I remember once, in Italy, having been long waiting, in the end of March, for the arrival of the double snipe in the Campagna of Rome,-a great flight appeared on the 3d of April, and the day after heavy rain sat in, which greatly interfered with my sport. The vulture, upon the same principle, follows armies; and I have no doubt that the augury of the ancients was a good deal founded upon the observation of the instincts of birds. There are many superstitions of the vulgar owing to the same source. For anglers, in spring, it is always unlucky to see single magpies,-but two may be always regarded as a favourable omen; and the reason is, that in cold and stormy weather one magpie alone leaves the nest in search of food, the other remaining sitting upon the eggs or the young ones; but when two go out together, it is only when the weather is warm and mild, and favourable for fishing.

"POIET.-The singular connections of causes and effects, to which you have just referred, make superstition less to be wondered at, particularly amongst the vulgar; and when two facts, naturally unconnected, have been accidentally coincident, it is not singular that this coincidence should have been observed and registered, and that omens of the most absurd kind should be trusted in. In the west of England, half a century ago, a particular hollow noise on the sea coast was referred to a spirit or goblin, called Bucca, and was supposed to foretel a shipwreck; the philosopher knows that sound travels much faster than currents in the air-and the sound always foretold the approach of a very heavy storm, which seldom takes place on that wild and rocky coast, without a shipwreck on some part of its extensive shores, surrounded by the Atlantic.

"PHYS.-All the instances of omens you have mentioned are founded on reason; but how can you explain such absurdities as Friday being an unlucky day, the terror of spilling salt, or meeting an old woman? I knew a man, of very high dignity, who was exceedingly moved by these omens, and who never went out shooting without a bittern's claw fastened to his buttonhole by a ribband— which he thought ensured him good luck.

"POIET.-These, as well as the omens of death watches, dreams, &c. are for the most part founded upon some accidental coincidences; but spilling of salt, on an uncommon occasion, may, as I have known it, arise from a disposition to apoplexy, shown by an incipient numbness in the hand, and may be a fatal symptom; and persons, dispirited by bad omens, sometimes prepare the way for evil fortune; for confidence in success is a great means of ensuring it. The dream of Brutus, before the field of Pharsalia, probably produced a species of irresolution and despondency, which was the principle cause of his losing the battle and I have heard that the illustrious sportsman to whom you referred just now, was always observed to shoot ill, because he shot carelessly, after one of his dispiriting omens.

"HAL.-I have in life met with a few things which I found it impossible to explain, either by chance coincidences or by natural connections; and I have known minds of a very superior class