72 DAYS AND NIGHTS OF SALMON FISHING. 



logous to my fishing-rod butt ; and at each successive 

 stroke on the brain, the colours undulated away in the 

 most delicate and beautiful radiance. All this is, indeed, 

 exceedingly revolting to humanity, and presents a 

 tempting theme for the reprobation of the poet and 

 sentimentalist ; and yet I confess that I cannot enter 

 completely into this feeling, not only from my enjoy- 

 ment of, and relish for, the sport of rod-fishing, but even 

 from considerations of a more legitimate bearing. I do 

 not think that cold-blooded animals suffer equally with 

 warm-blooded ; and my grounds for forming this opin- 

 ion I shall shortly state. I have often lost a trout 

 which had gorged my bait, and yet recaptured him in 

 a short time with the former hook deep fastened in his 

 stomach, and the broken line pending from his jaws. 

 I, for one, certainly should have had little appetite to 

 dine so soon after swallowing a fork. I have seen a 

 large trout enjoying the amplitude of a clear pond with 

 a couple of my fly-hooks appended to his nose. Nay I 

 have even witnessed him rising to a natural fly in this 

 situation, whilst, fisher-like, he caught a smaller com- 

 panion by the depending hook. Nature is wonder- 

 fully benevolent to her children. The absence of all 

 kind of medical aid in the waters seems to be fully 

 compensated by the vis medicatrix naturai — an old 

 experienced practitioner, by whose management the 

 most severe wounds made by the pike upon the trout, 

 and the grampus upon the salmon, are safely and 

 rapidly cured. I have caught trouts, particularly in 

 the neighbourhoood where pike harbour, in various 

 states of mutilation, yet seemingly in good health and 



