850 
banks of the Thames, or the midland 
Ouse, cares I'ttle about the meanders of 
the Porth, the furious rapids of the Spey, 
or the majestic flow ofthe Shannon. ‘T'o 
the naturalist, a full and particular ac- 
count of the different kinds of fish, which 
are nearly peculiar, or most abundant in 
any stream, would be highly atceptable 
and gratifying; but for such a work only 
Scanty materials are as yet to be found. 
Our author’s information on this head is 
By no means discriminative or abundant. 
Thus on Bedfordshire all that we are 
told is, that the Ouse is a good river 
for trolling, and produces (as does fhe 
Hyee and the Ivel) pike, perch, fine cels, 
and common fish in abundance ; and un- 
der Buckinghamshire, that its rivers pro- 
duce trout, and good fish of other sorts. 
With respect to the last sweeping article, 
we may safely ask, what river does not? 
Nor can we afford greater praise tothe 
general execution of the design. Instead 
of following the course of nature, and 
tracing a river from its source to its 
mouth, he has followed-the divisions of 
the counties ; and, to make the confusion 
still greater, has arranged the counties 
in their alphabetical order. ‘The same 
fiver is consequently often mentioned 
several times, and at the distance of 
several pages. 
This total want of all real order has 
betrayed him into several considerable, 
and some laughable errors. He tells us, 
for instance, as a curious circumstance, 
. that “crayfish will live in. no stream 
which does not run towards the south. 
‘The gentleman,” he adds, ‘¢ who favour- 
ed me with it, has tried to stock, and it 
invariably happens that they disappear 
from waters that run in opposite direc- 
tions, however apparently well adapted, 
from having plenty of their favourite 
food, water-cresses, &c. In confirmation 
of this remark, the rivers of Surrey have 
no crayfish, while those of Sussex abound 
with them.” This would indeed be a 
curious circumstance, if the fact were 
weil ascertained. But to destroy its cre- 
dit at once, as far as it rests on the au- 
thority of the present work, it is attached 
as a note to the article Berkshire, the 
rivers of which, Mr. Daniel assures us, 
abound in crayfish; and who does not 
instantly perceive that the Berkshire ri- 
vers have the same direction as those of 
Surrey, and that as they fall into the 
|. "fhames by its right bank, their course 
must, upon the whole, be to the north ? 
: - 
NATURAL 
HISTORY. 
But this is by no means the most strik- 
ing blunder into which our author has 
fallen through his inattention to the con- 
nected geography of the country. Con- 
founding the two Loch-levens with each 
other, aid connecting them in his ideas 
with the river Leven, which kas no actual 
connection with either, but discharges 
the waters of Loch-lomond into the Clyde 
at Dunbarton, he has removed the fresh 
water Leven, with its celebrated island, 
in which the unhappy queen of Scots was 
confined, from the neighbourhood of 
Kinross, on the eastern side of Scotland, 
to the north of Argyleshire; and that its 
waters may not flow with those of its 
salt-water namesake into Loch-linnhé, he 
has compelled them to run over a ridge 
of mountains into the Loch-lomond river 
Leven, and delivered them to the care of 
the Clyde. Compared with this mighty 
achievement, the labours of Hercules are 
the sports of a child. It is, however, not 
altogether without example in modern 
times. A pedestrian traveller had, some 
years before, conveyed the river Dee over 
the mountains of Snowdonia, from Ban- 
gor, inthe detached part of Flintshire, to 
Bangor in the county of Carnarvon; and 
instead of suffering it to run imits ancient 
channel by the walls of Chestle into the 
estuary which hatl, time out of mind, 
borne its name, had forced it into the 
waters of the Menai : 
When this book of rural sports comes 
to a second edition, as we doubt not it 
soon will, Mr. Daniel will do well to write 
the account of rivers over again; or, as 
we should think more adviseable, entirely 
to expunge it. 
In the progress of the work, the prac- 
tical angler will receive much valuable 
information with respect to his rods and 
lines, his floats, his hooks, and his baits, 
both natural and artificial, which are des 
scribed at great length and with great 
clearness; as also the particular times 
and modes in which the different kinds 
of fresh-water fish are to be caught. The 
directions are taken partly, of course, 
from old Walton, and partly from more 
modern authors: the descriptions of the 
different species, sometimes from Pen- 
nant, sometimes from the: Scotch System 
of Natural History, and sometimes from’ 
the Elements of Natural History, printed’ 
also at Edinburgh, and reviewed in cur 
first volume. But the author himself has 
furnished much original matter, and has 
enlivened the dryness of didactic and de- 
