Fishes of the Angle. 129 



1 ' By purifying frosts when streams run clear, 

 The amorous salmons to the fords repair ; 

 Unerring instinct moves their longing mind, 

 By wondrous ways to propagate their kind. 

 Not the red firebrand blazing o'er their head 

 Can force the lovers from their wat'ry bed ; 

 So fierce love rages in their gelid blood, 

 The unheeded trident gores them in the flood. 

 Deep, deep, they bury in a sandy bed 

 Their countless ova and prolific seed ; 

 Which unobserved long lurk beneath the tide 

 Till Sol arrays the year in vernal pride. 

 Then all the sand (a true though wondrous thing) 

 Begins to move as in a bubbling spring ; 

 Swarming with life, the weltering bottom heaves, 

 And glittering swarms crowd the encumbered waves. 

 Broad shoals, on shoals in youthful prime, are rolled ; 

 Their azure armour shines with studs of gold ; 

 Bedropt with purple hues and scarlet bright, 

 They shoot amid the floods, a glorious sight." Leyden. 



" Now when the labouring fish doth at the foot arrive, 

 And finds that by his strength but vainlie he doth strive, 

 His taile takes in his teeth ; and bending like a bow, 

 That's to the compasse drawne, aloft himself doth throwe, 

 Then springing at his height, as doth a little wand, 

 That bended end to end, and flerted from the hand, 

 Farre off itselfe doth cast ; so doth the salmon vaut. 

 And if at first he faile, his second summersaut 

 Hee instantiie assaies ; and from his nimble ring 

 Still yarking, never leaves, until himselfe he fling 

 Above the Weare." 



The salmon-fisher too is a frequent figure, and Marvell's 

 vignette is perhaps the most curious 



" And now the salmon-fishers moist, 

 Their leathern boatsbegin to hoist, 

 And, like antipodes in shoes, 

 Have shod their heads in their canoes. 

 How tortoise-like, but none so slow 

 These rational amphibii go." 



The " dainty " sole ; the sturgeon of Darwin's poem 



"With worm-like beard his toothless lips array, 

 And teach the unwieldy sturgeon to betray. 

 Ambush'd in weeds, or sepulchred in sands, 

 In dread repose he waits the scaly bands, 



I 



