■^ 



FISHES AlfD FISHING. 



neither seed or fruits. Animals in like manner 

 kept sexually separate from each other, lose their 

 energies, or become diseased, or soured in temper, 

 and often die early. In the human race, where the 

 forms of the world, or other circumstances arising in 

 civilised society, prevent the laws of nature from 

 being fulfilled at the proper season, great nervous 

 irritability, even extending to insanity, or a state of 

 occult disease a little removed from it, shewing itself 

 in a disposition to regard every circumstance of life in 

 an unfavourable light, or some more apparent malady, 

 total, or partial privation of one or more of the senses, 

 is almost sure to occur. That a great cause of in- 

 sanity may thus be traced, is a well-known truth 

 amongst those of the professional world, who have 

 the supervision of lunatics. 



The experiment I have alluded to, of keeping the 

 two sexes of fish apart, would probably develope a 

 curious physiological fact. 



Fifty years ago, when the water of the Serpentine 

 river was quite clear, angling in it was an exclusive 

 privilege possessed by few ; all beyond the superin- 

 tendent's house was a green bank down to the water, 

 to which the road was over the foot-bridge by the 

 guard-house, which idlers, and those who had no right 

 there, were not allowed to pass. I was one whose 

 name was inscribed on the free list. The roach then 



