128 The Poets and Nature. 



1 ' But for chaste love the mullet hath no peer ; 

 For, if the fisher hath surprised her pheer, 

 As mad with woe, to shore she followeth, 

 Prest to comfort him both in life and death." Walton. 



(In contrast to this, from the same poet, is the " sargus "- 



"The adult' rous sargus doth not only change 

 Wives every day in the deep streams, but (strange) 

 As if the honey of sea-love delight 

 Could not suffice his ranging appetite, 

 Goes courting she-goats on the grassy shore, 

 Horning their husbands that had horns before." 



So, too, the "constant" cantharis, which, says this "corn- 

 pleat " old angler, 



" In nuptial duties spendeth his chaste life, 

 Never loves any but his own dear wife.") 



The " bright-eyed perch with fins of Tyrian dye " (Pope), 

 "and prickling fins against the pike prepared "- 



11 As Nature had therein bestowed this stronger guard 

 His daintiness to keep (each curious palate's proof), 

 From his vile ravenous foe." Drayton. 



The pike that "feed like cannibals" (Butler); the "tyrant 

 pike" (Somerville), "that keeps awful court" (Ramsay); 

 " vile, ravenous pike," "dispeoples of the lake" (Gay); 

 the ruffe, " the very near ally" of the perch ; the " wary " 

 roach (Marvel), " whose common kind to every flood doth 

 fall;" the "stately sawmont" of Burns, "that dreads the 

 thievish net and triple spear " (Gay). 



Only less frequent because less familiar is "the stately 

 sawmont," for this noble fish meets everywhere with the 

 same unstinted admiration. Its life-history might easily 

 be gathered from the poets, but the two following must 

 suffice as specimens of the detail in which "the lord of 

 rivers " is treated. 



