52 LITTLE SUFFERING FROM THE HOOK. 



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, ex- 

 ceedingly 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 enjoyment of, and relish 

 for, the sport of rod-fishing, but even from consider- 

 ations of a more legitimate bearing. I do not think 

 that cold-blooded animals suffer equally with warm- 

 blooded ; and my grounds for forming this opinion 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 wonderfully 

 benevolent to her children. The absence of all kind 

 of medical aid in the waters seems to be fully compen- 

 sated by the vis medicatrix natures — 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 neighbourhood 

 where pike harbour, in various states of mutilation, yet 

 seemingly in good health and spirits ; from all which I 



