INHUMANITY OF ANGLING. 199 



their legs by way of experiment, in addition to the art of 

 angling, the cruelest, the coldest, and the stupidest of 

 pretended sports. They may talk about the beauties of 

 nature, but the angler merely thinks of a dish of fish ; he 

 has no leisure to take his eyes from off the streams, and a 

 single bite is worth to him more than all the scenery 

 around. Besides, some fish bite best in a rainy day. The 

 whale, the shark, the tunny fishery have something of the 

 noble and perilous in them ; even net-fishing, trawling, &c., 

 are more humane and useful but angling ! No angler 

 can be a good man." Lord Byron, Notes to Canto 13. 



THE ADVENTURES OF A SALMON. 



" After having wintered in the central region of the 

 Atlantic, in a depth of about ten miles, which no storm 

 could disturb, and where the smoothness of the sands, the 

 calmness of the water, and the luxuriant richness and 

 variety of vegetation, made the most delightful life for 

 nine months of the year, while all on the surface was raging 

 tempest or bitter frost, the necessity of providing for my 

 offspring in the river, in which I first saw the light, drove 

 me most reluctantly upwards. As our column of about a 

 hundred millions approached the shores, we found sufficient 

 reasons to regret the delightful regions which we had left 

 below. Instead of the pure water in which it was a luxury 

 to move, we shrunk from the half warm, half corrupt 

 surface ; we were disgusted by the smell of the decayed 

 vegetation poured down by the rivers, and were all but 



