THE ORNITHOLOGICAL GUIDE. 123 



" In Sir Humphrey Davy's Salmonia, there is a 

 passage, descriptive of river scenery, which is so 

 true to nature, that we cannot refrain from quoting 

 it : — i As to its (angling's) practical relations, it 

 carries us into the most wild and beautiful scenery 

 of nature ; amongst the mountain-lakes, and the 

 clear and lovely stream, that gush from the higher 

 ranges of elevated hills, or make their way through 

 the cavities of calcareous strata :' (We should not, 

 for our fishing, give a preference to streams, that 

 run through calcareous strata ; but rfimporte.) 

 i How delightful, in the early spring, after the dull 

 and tedious winter, when the frosts disappear, and 

 the sunshine warms the earth and waters, to wander 

 forth by some clear stream, — to see the leaf bursting 

 from the purple bud, — to scent the odors of the bank, 

 perfumed by the violet, and enamelled, as it were, with 

 the primrose and the daisy : — to wander upon the 

 fresh turf, below the shade of the trees ; — and, on the 

 surface of the waters, to view the gaudy flies spark- 

 ling, like animated gems, in the sunbeams, while the 

 bright, beautiful trout is watching them from below ; 

 to hear the twittering of the water-birds, who, alarmed 

 at your approach hide themselves beneath the leaves 

 of the waterlilies ; and, as the season advances, to 

 find all these objects changed for others of the same 

 kind, but better and brighter, till the swallow and 

 the trout contend, as it were, for the gaudy May-fly ; 

 and still, in pursuing your amusement in the calm 

 and balmy evening, you are serenaded by the songs 



