312 Ifcinss of tbe 1Rofc, IRffle, anfc 6un 



favour, though for a long while he had discarded it for 

 the more contemplative pastime. Possibly Lady 

 Davy had inoculated him with her own restlessness, 

 and so unfitted him, temporarily, for the full enjoy- 

 ment of the peacefulest of all pleasures. His brother 

 John says : 



" From his boyhood he had been a lover of the angle, 

 and he was hardly less fond of fowling, for which sport 

 also he had acquired a taste early in life. At no time 

 of his life did he relinquish angling, except at the com- 

 mencement of his public career, whilst he was at Clifton, 

 and the first year or two he was in London, when all his 

 faculties were strained in the pursuit of science under 

 the impulse of a lofty ambition, and an intense desire 

 of distinguishing himself, extending the boundaries of 

 human knowledge, and benefiting mankind. When he 

 resumed angling, he pursued it, I may say, passionately 

 for some years, and never used his gun. The time, 

 however, arrived, I think it was soon after his marriage, 

 that he seemed to prefer his gun to his rod ; and probably 

 the reason for this was that he was much in the country 

 in the autumn, and followed fishing and shooting more 

 than formerly for amusement, and less as a mere relax- 

 ation from his scientific labours. Latterly, it is difficult 

 to say which he preferred ; the preference, I believe, was 

 very much decided by the kind of sport ; the salmo 

 Jiucho of the branches of the Danube, in Southern 

 Austria, and the double snipe in the marshes of Rome 

 and Ravenna, Laybach and Altona, would be to him 

 almost equally attractive. By connecting both sports 

 with natural history, he gave them a degree of import- 



