74 ANGLING. 



be thought to malign the morals of the objects of 

 our favourite sport, we shall notice a few exceptions 

 to what we undoubtedly regard as the general rule, 

 although we have devoted but little of our leisure 

 to what a French clergyman, a friend of ours, was 

 wont to call " the loaves of fishes." 



Mr. Yarrell is of opinion that considerable at- 

 tachment is frequently exhibited between the pa- 

 rents. Mr. Jesse records that he once caught a 

 female pike during the spawning season, and that 

 nothing could drive the male away from the spot 

 at which she had disappeared. He (the pike, not 

 Mr. Jesse) even followed her to the very edge of 

 the water, " with long reluctant amorous delay." 

 In other cases, this attachment is said not to be con- 

 fined to the season of spawning ; for a person who 

 had kept two small fishes together in a glass vessel, 

 having given one of them away, the other refused 

 to eat, and showed obvious symptoms of an un- 

 happy anxiety till his companion was restored. 

 This, however, we would remark, was an experi- 

 ment under constrained or artificial circumstances, 

 and is therefore scarcely conclusive, although it 

 shows that the germ of some affection may exist in 

 fishes. Solitude, or almost total seclusion from 

 one^s kind, produces indeed a very dissimilar effect 

 in different constitutions. It is asserted that a 

 sentimental sailor actually fell in love with an old 

 maid through his prison bars ; while, on the other 

 hand, it is known that keepers of light-houses 

 almost always hate each other. However this may 

 be, some few fishes exhibit an attachment to their 



