152 THE RIVER. 



of feeling toward our fellows, in proportion as the 

 animal to which the act is done approximates to man 

 in structure or association. That which shrieks and 

 throbs with pain, from which the blood flows warm, 

 and the breath escapes in sighs and convulsions, 

 the killing of a hare or a rabbit, or even a pig, is much 

 more likely to contaminate, than the death of a trout, 

 which has little or nothing in common with us. A cat 

 is a predatory animal, and yet a man of any pretensions 

 to right feelings would rather pull a few thousand 

 fishes from the stream, than kill the mouser which sat 

 basking in the lone old woman's cottage window, and 

 had for ten long years been the only associate of its 

 mistress. This maudlin tenderness, which is often the 

 cloak of cruelty of a far worse description, is another 

 of the fruits of that bastard tree of knowledge, which 

 produces words, not things ; and the very summit of 

 which is so dwarfed and lowly, that it can command 

 but a little shred of the prospect. Before we decide, 

 we should see the whole ; for if we do not understand 

 that, we shall never be able to comprehend the purpose 

 and working of any of the parts. But we had almost 

 forgotten 



THE WATER-FLIES. 



THE habits of the water-flies show that nature has 

 intended them as food for the fishes. Very many of 

 them pass through the first stages of their being in 

 water ; and when they become perfect flies, the surface 

 and vicinity of that element are still their haunts. 

 They are in general short-lived; and the instinct of 



