260 OUT OF DOORS 



OUR RIVER HARVESTS* 



MAN can endure many things. Incredible as the asser- 

 tion may appear, civilised man is capable of maintain- 

 ing existence, though deprived of a town and country 

 house, a box at the opera, three or four gigantic foot- 

 men, and a velvet-footed valet. Follow him down- 

 wards through all the phases of terrestrial conditions, 

 and under all varieties of climate, and you shall find 

 him by degrees casting off one garment after another, 

 and one want after another, until the primitive savage 

 stands before you, wholly without clothing, and almost 

 without wants. 



He needs no tailor to shelter him from the cold, 

 for his body is ' all face ; ' and in particularly severe 

 weather he clothes himself by the simple process of 

 stripping the skin off some newly-slain animal and 

 flinging it over his shoulders. He needs no architect 

 nor builder, no carpenter and no plumber to aid him in 

 erecting his house ; for the cleft of a rock, or a hole 



1 The following article, which was written in 1862, is here given in 

 order to show the science of Fish-hatching as it was in its earliest 

 infancy. Many improvements have been made, and several of the 

 abuses which are mentioned have been corrected. 



