NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SALMON. 59 



less prig Candide did not, in dealing with the baker's 

 wife, venture on any counter proposition, but simply 

 declined to enter on the Catholic question at all, on the 

 preposterous plea (destructive of half the controversies 

 which enliven the world) that he knew nothing about 

 it, whilst he did know that he was starving, and that 

 the lady's husband was a baker, whom he had just heard 

 make an eloquent speech in praise of charity. But our 

 heretical friend, Mr. Mackenzie of Dundonnell, went the 

 length of an entire denial of the orthodox ichthyological 

 creed, and greatly aggravated his offence by showing 

 that he did know a good deal about the matter regarding 

 which he had arrived at such unhappy opinions. Indeed, 

 the heresy was so bold and wanton as almost to justify 

 suspicions as to the motives of the heretic. To " make 

 a reputation/' it is perhaps a surer way to table a nega- 

 tive of something that everybody has taken as unques- 

 tionable, than to discover something positive that nobody 

 had thought of. If a man were to arise, preaching that 

 ducklings do not become ducks, nor leverets hares, nor 

 lambs sheep, he would, according to what has hitherto 

 been the scientific, and almost equally the popular 

 apprehension, be in much the same position as that in 

 which this undaunted northern placed himself. What if 

 Dundonnell has been actuated, not by a reckless zeal for 

 what he conceived to be the truth, but rather by a burn- 

 ing thirst for fame ? What if he has been only frenzied 

 with an ambition like to that of Eratostratus, and 

 sought to gain an undying, if undesirable, reputation, 

 by setting fire to the Tay, the Tweed, and all other 

 salmon rivers ? 



