INSTINCT AND REASON IN DOGS, ETC. 231 



to supply tlie rivers or even ponds with salmon 

 treated like the jealous guards of a Turkisli 

 seraglio, so as to put a desire to return to the sea 

 out of the question. (My dear reader, don't laugh; 

 I wish you to he serious.) To sum uj), then, my 

 belief in this aqueous theory, I simply make the 

 following assertions. The organization of fish, 

 and the immense power of the salmon in par- 

 ticular to resist, and the frail texture of the 

 bodily covering, the scales, render an operation, in 

 ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, practically 

 impossible either upon the male or the female 

 fish. If you desire to increase the quantity of 

 fish of any kind, handle them not at all; for, to 

 quote Byron's beautiful lines, yet to render them 

 apposite to the matter in hand, — 



" The lovely ' fish/ so fiercely sought, 

 Hath lost its life by being caught, 

 And every touch that forced its stay 

 Hath reft each silvery.scale away ; 

 Shorn of its hues, the salmon flics, 

 Swims to the pool, and ' sulking,' dies." 



Wonderful things do happen in this the year of 

 grace 1871-2; yet in respect of natural history 

 more so than in any other case. Nature renders 



