200 CYPRINID^. 



sustained attempts of the most echicated and most influential 

 gentlemen of the State, both of the city and the agricultural 

 counties, to induce the faineant demagogues of that assembly to 

 take some measure to prevent the total extinction, within that 

 very county of Orange, of some of the noblest species of game 

 in existence, indigenous to that region, and once abundant, but 

 already scarce, and within twenty years certain to be lost alto- 

 gether, through the mal-practices of their destroyers, the errors 

 of the existing game-laws, and the difiiculty of enforcing them 

 in their present state. 



It is quite unnecessary to state that these efi'orts were wholly 

 ineffectual — that it was found impossible to induce those learned 

 Thebans to do anything to prevent American Woodcock from 

 being shot before they are fledged, and American Brook Trout 

 from being caught upon then' spawning beds; but that no 

 sooner is a coarse, watery, foreign fish accidentally thrown into 

 American waters, than it is vigorously and effectively protected, 

 which protection was merely granted I believe to enable 

 " a facetious member of the legislature," as he is styled by the 

 learned Dr. Bethune in his fine edition of "Walton's Angler, to 

 draw a witty comparison between the naturalisation of " scaly 

 foreigners" and Irish voters. I dare say the " facetious member" 

 was not devoid of hopes that the scaly foreigners would some 

 day or other vote for him. 



It is impossible to feel anything but contempt for such 

 unutterable blockheadism, while it is equally impossible to 

 expect anything better, after their recent exhibitions in the 

 legislatorial line, from such a body as the New York Houses of 

 Assemblv. 



