SALMON ANGLINQ IN IBELAND. 95 



time. Even his worst enemies cannot charge him with stealing the 

 bread from the mouths of any of his relations. They (unnatural 

 beasts as they are) eat up as many of the children belonging to our 

 harmless silvery friends as they can catch ; but poor Salmo does not 

 retaliate he humbly asks to come with his wife during the period 

 of her lying-in, promising to return to the great city from whence 

 he came on the first convenient opportunity. In due time his 

 children follow, grow to be men and women, and do as their 

 forefathers did. But here we meet a difficulty, * the half-and-half 

 theory," which arises out of the question, " At what age do the pan- 

 put on their gala dress and set out on their travels ? " One man, 

 after diligent investigation, finds they migrate at one year ; another, 

 after equally praiseworthy labour, learns that they depart at two. 

 Something is to be advanced in support of each opinion ; so, by way 

 of smoothing down contending parties, a peaceable Christian observes, 

 " Well, well, it doesn't signify much you need not quarrel about it; 

 some shall go this year and some the next." All the little boys and 

 girls in my street (your pardon, my children young ladies and 

 gentlemen) number, perhaps, two hundred. When one hundred of 

 these at twelve or thirteen years become adepts in geography and 

 Greek, music and the fine arts, plain work and etiquette, and are, 

 in fact, really fit for the serious business of life, whilst the other 

 hundred are dressing dolls and playing marbles when I see this 

 unusual state of things, then, and not till then, will I believe the 

 "half-and-half theory." Nature is guided by one invariable law. 

 All my young ducks are feathered about the same time. Our dear 

 mother does not ordinarily work by miracles, and it would be 

 miraculous indeed if half the paiT in any river, exposed to the same 

 temperature, bom about the same time, and fed with the same food, 

 were to dress like young beaux and go forth into the world, whilst 

 the other half were content to stay at home in the nursery. Would 

 it not be better to suppose even the ablest observers in error, than to 

 adopt an opinion which requires for its support a violation of well- 

 known natural laws ? But all this has little to do with our thesis. 

 The rivers will not give us their beef and mutton till cultivated, and 



