28 TREATISE ON FLY-FISHING. 



till the swallow and the trout contend as it were 

 for the gaudy May fly, and till, in pursuing your 

 amusement in the calm and balmy evening, you 

 are serenaded by the songs of the cheerful thrush 

 and the melodious nightingale, performing the 

 offices of maternal love, in thickets ornamented 

 with the rose and the woodbine." 



Sir H. Davie's researches in natural history, 

 are exhibited in many parts of this interesting 

 work, and his suggestions with reference to the 

 migration of animals, will account for those 

 phenomena, which direct the operations of the 

 sportsman whether armed with gun or rod. He is 

 of opinion that the two great causes of the change 

 of place of animals is the providing of food for 

 themselves and resting places and food for their 

 young. The great supposed migrations of her- 

 rings from the poles to the temperate zone, he 

 considers to be only the approach of successive 

 shoals from deep to shallow water, for the pur- 

 pose of spawning. 



