84 CURIOUS PREDICAMENT. 



There is a certain spurious sort of humanity going about 

 that I cannot understand. Thus I know a lady who will 

 not eat game, because, she says, shooting is a cruel 

 amusement ; but she is very much addicted to fowls, and 

 all domestic poultry, feeding them one day, and eating 

 them up the next, with treacherous alacrity and amiable 

 perseverance. It wovild be more candid in her, therefore, 

 to say to us sportsmen, like the fox in the fable, — 



" Go, but be moderate in your food ; 

 A pheasant too might do me good." 



" I once saw," says the learned and accomplished Dr. 

 Gillespie, " one of these all-devouring fish in a curious 

 predicament. In fishing, or rather strolling, within these 

 few years, Avith a rod in one hand and a book in the 

 other, so as to alternate reading and fishing, as the 

 clouds came and went, I observed a great many June- 

 flies, at which the fish were occasionally rising, and which 

 at the same time were picked up by the swallows, as 

 they skimmed over the surface of the still water. It so 

 happened that a trout from beneath, and a swallow 

 from above, had fixed their affections upon the same 

 yellow-winged and tempting fly. Down came the 

 swallow, and up came the open mouth of the fish ; into 

 which, in pursuit of his prey, the swallow pitched his 

 head. The struggle was not long, but pretty severe ; and 

 the swallow was once or twice nearly immersed, wings 

 and all, in the water, before he got himself disentangled 

 from the sharp teeth of the fish." It is true that the 

 trout had no intention of encountering the bird ; but 

 every one knows that pike will pull young ducks under 

 the water, and devour them. 



" The Tay trout," says John Crerar (I copy from 



