CHAPTER I. 



FRESH - WATER FISH. 



" OUR plenteous streams a various race supply ; 

 The bright-eyed perch, with fins of Tyrian dye; 

 The silver eel, in shining volumes roll'd ; 

 The yellow carp, in scales bedripp'd with gold ; 

 Swift trouts, diversified with crimson stains, 

 And pikes, the tyrants of the watery plains." 



So sings Pope; and he might have enlarged the 

 catalogue without exhausting the stock. Before I 

 proceed to describe the several species of fish which 

 it is here intended to notice, it may be as well to offer a 



