8 SALMONIA. 



destroys a piece of game, or a fish with a club 

 or spear, to man in the most cultivated state of 

 society, who employs artifice, machinery, and 

 the resources of various other animals, to 

 secure his object, the origin of the pleasure is 

 similar, and its object the same: but that kind 

 of it requiring most art may be said to cha- 

 racterise man in his highest or intellectual 

 state ; and the fisher for salmon and trout with 

 the fly employs not only machinery to assist 

 his physical powers, but applies sagacity to 

 conquer difiiculties ; and the pleasure derived 

 from ingenious resources and devices, as well 

 as from active pursuit, belongs to this amuse- 

 ment. Then as to its philosophical tendency ; 

 it is a pursuit of moral discipline, requiring 

 patience, forbearance, and command of temper. 

 As connected with natural science, it may be 

 vaunted as demanding a knowledge of the 

 habits of a considerable tribe of created beings 

 — fishes, and the animals that they prey upon, 

 and an acquaintance with the signs and tokens 

 of the weather and its changes, the nature 

 of waters, and of the atmosphere. As to its 

 poetical relations, it carries us into the most 



