THE SALMON. 3 



continues several days ; the male seems to be the 

 most active both in the digging and in the covering 

 of the pits ; he frequently dies by over exertion, 

 and at all times is longer than the female in re- 

 covering his strength. Francks, whose knowledge 

 of natural history as well as angling far exceeded 

 that of any writer of his age, but whose work is almost 

 unknown, and so rare that we are not aware of the 

 existence of more than a single copy, has drawn the 

 following quaint but accurate picture of this myste- 

 rious process of nature, to which he was himself an 

 eye-witness : " As I was angling," says he, " one 

 time on a sunshiny day, in these limpid and trans- 

 parent streams of Hay, I was constrained, in regard 

 of the excessive heat, to relinquish her inflamed 

 sandy shores, and seek umbrage (where I could get 

 it) from some shady trees, but none I found there to 

 harbour and relieve me. However, by this time I 

 recovered a meadow which generously commoded 

 me with a hawthorn bush, that nature had planted 

 by the river side, which served me for a sanctuary, 

 whose dilating boughs, spreading as an umbrella, 

 defended me from the scorching rays of the sun ; 

 where also I lay close concealed, the better to in- 

 spect nature's curiosities. For whilst reposing my- 

 self under this tiffany shade of diversified leaves and 

 flourishing twigs that hovered over the banks of 

 this amorous Hay, on a sudden I discovered a very 

 large salmon leisurely swimming towards the leeward 

 shore ; and having considered the sun at his meri- 

 dian, I thought it needless to provoke her with a fly, 

 B 2 



