Poiet.—This is a glorious scene! And the fall of this great and clear river, with its accompaniments of wood, rock, and snow-clad mountain, would alone furnish matter for discussion and conversation for many days. This place is quite the paradise of a poetical angler; the only danger is that of satiety with regard to sport; for these great grayling and trout are so little used to the artificial fly, that they take almost any thing moving on the top of the water. You see I have put on a salmon fly, and still they rise at it, though they never can have seen any thing like it before—and it is, in fact, not like any thing in nature.
Hal.—You are right, they never have seen any thing like it before; but, in its motion, it is like a large fly, and this is the season for large flies. The stone fly and the May fly, you see, occasionally drop upon the water, and the colour of your large fly is not unlike that of the stone fly; but if, instead of being here in the beginning of July, you had visited this spot, as I once did, in the beginning of June, you would have found more difficulty in catching grayling here, though not so much as in our English rivers—in the Test, the Derwent, or the Dove.
Poiet.—How could this be?
Hal.—At this season the large flies had not yet appeared; the small blue dun was on the water, and I was obliged to use a fly the same as that which suits our spring and late autumnal fishing. The fish refused all large flies, but took greedily small ones; and, as usually happens when small flies are used, more fish escaped after being hooked than were taken; and these I found, the next day, were become as sagacious as our Dove or Test fish, and refused the artificial fly, though they greedily took the natural fly.
Phys.—These fish, then, have the same habits as our English salmons and trouts?
Hal.—The principle to which I have referred in two former conversations must be general, though it has seemed to me, that they lost this memory sooner than the fish of our English rivers, where fly fishing is common. This, however, may be fancy, yet I have referred it to a kind of hereditary disposition, which has been formed and transmitted from their progenitors.
Phys.—However strange it may appear, I can believe this. When the early voyagers discovered new islands, the birds upon them were quite tame, and easily killed by sticks and stones, being fearless of man; but they soon learned to know their enemy, and this newly acquired sagacity was possessed by their offspring, who had never seen a man. Wild and domesticated ducks are, in fact, from the same original type: it is only necessary to compare them, when hatched together under a hen, to be convinced of the principle of the hereditary transmission of habits,—the wild young ones instantly fly from man, the tame ones are indifferent to his presence.
Poiet.—No one can be less disposed than I am to limit the powers of living nature, or to doubt the capabilities of organized structures; but it does appear to me quite a dream, to suppose that a fish, pricked by the hook of the artificial fly, should transmit a dread of it to its offspring, though he does not even long retain the memory of it himself.
Hal.—There are instances quite as extraordinary—but I will not dwell upon them, as I am not quite sure of the fact which we are discussing; I have made a guess only, and we must observe more minutely to establish it; it may be even as you suppose—a mere dream.
Poiet.—I shall go and look at the fall: I am really satiated with sport; this is the twentieth fish I have taken in an hour, and it is a grayling of at least fifteen inches long; and there is a trout of eighteen, and several salmon trout, which look as if they had run from the sea.
Hal.—These salmon trout have run from a sea, but not from a salt sea; they are fish of the Traun See, as it is called by the Germans, or Traun Lake, which is emptied by this river.
Phys.—Tell us why they are so different from the river trout, or why there should be two species or varieties in the same water.
Hal.—Your question is a difficult one, and it has already been referred to in a former conversation; but I shall repeat what I stated before,—that qualities occasioned by food, peculiarities of water, &c. are transmitted to the offspring, and produce varieties which retain their characters as long as they are exposed to the same circumstances, and only slowly lose them. Plenty of good food gives a silvery colour and round form to fish, and the offspring retain these characters. Feeding much on larvæ and on shell-fish thickens the stomach, and gives a brighter yellow to the belly and fins, which become hereditary characters. Even these smallest salmon trout have green backs, only black spots, and silvery bellies; from which it is evident, that they are the offspring of lake trout, or lachs forelle, as it is called by the Germans; whilst the river trout, even when 4 or 5lbs., as we see in one of these fish, though in excellent season, have red spots.—But why that exclamation?
Poiet.—What an immense fish! There he is!
Hal.—I see nothing.
Poet.—At the edge of the pool, below the fall, I saw a fish, at least two or three feet long, rising with great violence in the water, as if in the pursuit of small fish; and at the same time I saw two or three minnows or bleaks jump out of the water. What fish is it?—a trout? It appeared to me too long and too slender for a trout, and had more the character of a pike;—yet it followed, and did not, like a pike, make a single dart.
Hal.—I see him: it is neither a pike nor a trout, but a fish which I have been some time hoping and expecting to see here, below the fall—a salmo hucho, or huchen. I am delighted, that you have an opportunity of seeing this curious fish, and of observing his habits. I hope we shall catch him.
Poiet.—Catch him! we have no tackle strong enough.
Hal.—I am surprised to hear a salmon fisher talk so: yet he is too large to take a fly, and must be trolled for. We must spin a bleak for him, or small fish, as we do for the trout of the Thames or the salmon of the Tay. Ornither, you understand the arrangement of this kind of tackle—look out in my book the strongest set of spinning hooks you can find, and supply them with a bleak; and whilst I am changing the reel, I will give you all the information (which, I am sorry to say, is not much) that I have been able to collect respecting this fish from my own observation or the experience of others. The hucho is the most predatory fish of the salmo genus, and is made like an ill-fed trout, but longer and thicker. He has larger teeth, more spines in the pectoral fin, a thicker skin, a silvery belly, and dark spots only on the back and sides—I have never seen any on the fins. The ratio of his length to his girth is as 8 to 18, or, in well fed fish, as 9 to 20; and a fish, 18 inches long by 8 in girth, weighed 16,215 grains. Another, 2 feet long, 11 inches in girth, and 3 inches thick, weighed 4lbs. 2¼oz. Another, 26 inches long, weighed 5lbs. 5oz. Of the spines in the fins, the anal has 9, the caudal 20, the ventral 9, the dorsal 12, the pectoral 17: having numbered the spines in many, I give this as correct. The fleshy fin belonging to the genus is, I think, larger in this species than in any I have seen. Bloch, in his work on fishes, states that there are black spots on all the fins, with the exception of the anal, as a character of this fish: and Professor Wagner informs me he has seen huchos with this peculiarity; but, as I said before, I never saw any fish with spotted fins—yet I have examined those of the Danube, Save, Drave, Mur, and Izar: perhaps this is peculiar to some stream in Bavaria—yet the huchos in the collection at Munich have it not. The hucho is found in most rivers tributary to the Danube—in the Save and Laybach rivers always; yet the general opinion is, that they run from the Danube twice a year, in spring and autumn. I can answer for their migration in spring, having caught several in April, in streams connected with the Save and Laybach rivers, which had evidently come from the still dead water into the clear running streams, for they had the winter leech, or louse of the trout upon them: and I have seen them of all sizes, in April, in the market at Laybach, from six inches to two feet long; but they are found much larger, and reach 30, or even 40, pounds. It is the opinion of some naturalists, that it is only a fresh water fish; yet this I doubt, because it is never found beyond certain falls—as in the Traun, the Drave, and the Save; and, there can be no doubt, comes into these rivers from the Danube; and probably, in its larger state, is a fish of the Black Sea. Yet it can winter in fresh water; and does not seem, like the salmon, obliged to haunt the sea, but falls back into the warmer waters of the great rivers, from which it migrates in spring, to seek a cooler temperature and to breed. The fishermen at Gratz say they spawn in the Mur, between March and May. In those I have caught at Laybach, which, however, were small ones, the ova were not sufficiently developed to admit of their spawning that spring. Marsigli says, that they spawn in the Danube in June. You have seen how violently they pursue their prey: I have never taken one without fish in his stomach; yet, when small, they will take a fly. In the Kleingraben, which is a feeder to the Laybach river, and where they are found of all sizes—from 20lbs. downwards—the little ones take a fly, but the large ones are too ravenous to care about so insignificant a morsel, and prey like the largest trout, often hunting in company, and chasing the small fish into the narrow and shallow streams, and then devouring them.—But I see your tackle is ready. As a more experienced angler in this kind of fishing, you will allow me to try my fortune with this fish. I still see him feeding; but I must keep out of sight, for he has all the timidity peculiar to the salmo genus, and, if he catch sight of me, will certainly not run at the bait.
Orn.—You spin the bleak for him, I see, as for a great trout. O! there! he has run at it—and you have missed him. What a fish! You surely were too quick, for he sprung out of the water at the bleak.
Hal.—I was not too quick; but he rose just as the bleak was on the surface, and saw me.
Poiet.—I think I see him moving in another part of the pool.
Hal.—You are right; he has run again at the bleak, but only as it shone on the surface. He has taken it.
Orn.—He fights well, and runs towards the side where the rock is.
Hal.—Take the net and frighten him from that place, which is the only one where there is danger of loosing him. He is clear now, and begins to tire, and in a few minutes more he will be exhausted.—Now land him.
Poiet.—A noble fish! But how like a trout—exactly like a sea trout in whiteness, and I think in spots.
Hal.—He is much narrower, or less broad, as you would immediately discover, if you had a sea trout here. But now we must try another pool, or the tail of this; that fish was not alone, and at the moment he took the bait, I think I saw the water move from the stir of another. Take your rod and fit your own tackle, Ornither; half the glory of catching this fish is yours, as you prepared the hooks. I see you are in earnest; the blood mounts in your face. Oh! oh! Ornither! you have pulled with too much violence, and broken your tackle. Alas! alas! the fish you hooked was the consort of mine: he will not take again.
Orn.—The gut was bad, for I do not think I struck too violently. What a loss! How hard, to let the first fish of the kind I ever angled for escape me!
Hal.—There are probably more: try again.
Orn.—Behold! the loss was more owing to the imperfection of the tackle than to my ardour; for the two end hooks only are gone, and you may see the gut worn.
Hal.—The thing is done, and is not worth comment. If you can, let the next fish that rises hook himself. When we are ardent, we are bad judges of the effort we make; and an angler, who could be cool with a new species of salmo, I should not envy. Now all is right again: try that pool. There is a fish—ay! and another, that runs at your bait; but they are small ones, not much more than twice as large as the bleak; yet they show their spirit, and though they cannot swallow it, they have torn it. Put on another bleak. There! you have another run.
Orn.—Ay, it is a small fish, not much more than a foot long; yet he fights well.
Hal.—You have him, and I will land him. I do not think such a fish a bad initiation into this kind of sport. He does not agitate so much as a larger one, and yet gratifies curiosity. There, we have him. A very beautiful fish; yet he has the leech, or louse, though his belly is quite white.
Orn.—This fish is so like a trout, that, had I caught him when alone, I should hardly have remarked his peculiarities; and I am not convinced, that it is not a variety of the common trout, altered, in many generations, by the predatory habits of his ancestors.
Hal.—How far the principle of change of character and transmission of such character to the offspring will apply, I shall not attempt to determine, and whether all the varieties of the salmo with teeth in their mouth may not have been produced from one original; yet this fish is now as distinct from the trout, as the char or the umbla is; and in Europe, it exists only below great falls in streams connected with the Danube, and is never found in rivers of the same districts connected with the Rhine, Elbe, or which empty themselves into the Mediterranean; though trout are common in all these streams, and salmon and sea trout in those connected with the ocean. According to the descriptions of Pallas, it occurs in the rivers of Siberia, and probably exists in those that run into the Caspian; and it is remarkable, that it is not found where the eel is usual—at least this applies to all the tributary streams of the Danube, and, it is said, to the rivers of Siberia. Wherever I have seen it, there have been always coarse fish—as chub, white fish, bleak, &c., and rivers containing such fish are its natural haunts, for it requires abundance of food, and serves to convert these indifferent poor fish into a better kind of nourishment for man. We will now examine the interior of these fish. You see the stomach is larger than that of a trout, and the stomachs of both are full of small fish. In the larger one there is a chub, a grayling, a bleak, and two or three small carp. The skin you see is thick; the scales are smaller than those of a trout; it has no teeth on the palate, and the pectoral fin has four spines more, which, I think, enables it to turn with more rapidity. You will find at dinner, that, fried or roasted, he is a good fish. His flesh is white, but not devoid of curd; and though rather softer than that of a trout, I have never observed in it that muddiness, or peculiar flavour, which sometimes occurs in trout, even when in perfect season.
I shall say a few words more on the habits of this fish. The hucho, as you have seen, preys with great violence, and pursues his object as a foxhound or a greyhound does. I have seen them in repose: they lie like pikes, perfectly still, and I have watched one for many minutes, that never moved at all. In this respect their habits resemble those of most carnivorous and predatory animals. It is probably in consequence of these habits, that they are so much infested by lice, or leeches, which I have seen so numerous in spring as almost to fill their gills, and interfere with their respiration, in which case they seek the most rapid and turbulent streams to free themselves from these enemies. They are very shy, and after being hooked avoid the baited line. I once saw a hucho, for which I was fishing, follow the small fish, and then the lead of the tackle; it seemed as if this had fixed his attention, and he never offered at the bait afterwards. I think a hucho, that has been pricked by the hook, becomes particularly cautious, and possesses, in this respect, the same character as the salmon. In summer, when they are found in the roughest and most violent currents, their fins (particularly the caudal fin) often appear worn and broken; at this season they are usually in constant motion against the stream, and are stopped by no cataract or dam, unless it be many feet in height, and quite inaccessible. In the middle of September I have caught huchos perfectly clean in rapid cool streams, tributary to the Laybach and the Sava rivers; and, from the small developement of their generative system at this time, I have no doubt that they spawn in spring. On the 13th of September, 1828, I caught, by spinning the dead small fish, three huchos, that had not a single leech upon their bodies, and they were the first fish of the kind I ever saw free from these parasites.
Orn.—I am so much pleased with my good fortune in catching this fish, that I shall try all day to-morrow with the bait, for more of the same kind.
Hal.—You may do so; but many of these fish cannot be caught; they migrate generally when the water is foul, and, except in the spring and autumn, do not so readily run at the bait. I was once nearly a month seeking for one in rivers in which they are found, between the end of June and that of July, without being able to succeed in even seeing one alive; and as far as my information goes, the two places where there is most probability of taking them, are at Laybach and Ratisbon, in the tributary streams to the Sava, and in the Danube; and the best time, in the first of these situations, is in March and April, and in the second, in May. I am told, likewise, that the Izar, which runs by Munich, is a stream where they may be caught, when the water is clear: but I have never fished in this stream—it having been foul, either from rain, or the melting of the snows, whenever I have been at Munich; but I have seen in the fish-market at Munich very large huchos. Late in the autumn, or in early spring, this river must be an interesting one to fish in, as the schill, or perca lucio perca, and three other species of perca are found in it—the zingel, the apron, and the perca schratz—all fish of prey, and excellent food. I have eaten them, but never taken them; they are rare in European rivers, though not, like the hucho, peculiar to the tributary streams of the Danube. The schill is found likewise in the Sprey and in the Hungarian lakes, and, according to Bloch, the zingel in the Rhone.
Poiet.—I should like extremely to fish in the Izar: it is, I think, a new kind of pleasure to take a new kind of fish, even though it is not unknown to Natural Historians. But the most exquisite kind of angling, in my opinion, would be that of angling in a river never fished in by Europeans before; and I can scarcely imagine sport of a higher kind than that which involves a triple source of pleasure—catching a fish, procuring good food for the table, and making a discovery in Natural History, at the same time. Sir Joseph Banks, who was always a great amateur of angling, had often this kind of gratification. And to Captain Franklin and Dr. Richardson, in their expedition to the Arctic Ocean, when they were almost starving, what a delightful circumstance it must have been, to have taken with a fly those large grayling, which they mention, of a new species, equally beautiful in their appearance, and good for the table!
Hal.—When a boy, I have felt an interest in sea fishing, for this reason—that there was a variety of fish; but the want of skill in the amusement—sinking a bait with a lead and pulling up a fish by main force, soon made me tired of it. Since I have been a fly-fisher, I have rarely fished in the sea, and then only with a reel and fine tackle from the rocks, which is at least as interesting an amusement as that of the Cockney fishermen, who fish for roach and dace in the Thames, which I have tried twice in my life, but shall never try again.
Phys.—You are severe on Cockney fishermen, and, I suppose, would apply to them only, the observation of Dr. Johnson, which on a former occasion you would not allow to be just: “Angling is an amusement with a stick and a string; a worm at one end, and a fool at the other.” And to yourself you would apply it with this change: “a fly at one end, and a philosopher at the other.” Yet the pleasure of the Cockney Angler appears to me of much the same kind, and perhaps more continuous than yours; and he has the happiness of constant occupation and perpetual pursuit in as high a degree as you have; and if we were to look at the real foundations of your pleasure, we should find them, like most of the foundations of human happiness—vanity or folly. I shall never forget the impression made upon me some years ago, when I was standing on the pier at Donegal, watching the flowing of the tide: I saw a lame boy of fourteen or fifteen years old, very slightly clad, that some persons were attempting to stop in his progress along the pier; but he resisted them with his crutches, and, halting along, threw himself from an elevation of five or six feet, with his crutches, and a little parcel of wooden boats, that he carried under his arm, on the sand of the beach. He had to scramble or halt at least 100 yards, over hard rocks, before he reached the water, and he several times fell down and cut his naked limbs on the bare stones. Being in the water, he seemed in an ecstacy, and immediately put his boats in sailing order, and was perfectly inattentive to the counsel and warning of the spectators, who shouted to him, that he would be drowned. His whole attention was absorbed by his boats. He had formed an idea, that one should outsail the rest, and when this boat was foremost he was in delight; but if any one of the others got beyond it he howled with grief; and once I saw him throw his crutch at one of the unfavoured boats. The tide came in rapidly—he lost his crutches, and would have been drowned, but for the care of some of the spectators: he was however wholly inattentive to any thing save his boats. He is said to be quite insane and perfectly ungovernable, and will not live in a house, or wear any clothes, and his whole life is spent in this one business—making and managing a fleet of wooden boats, of which he is sole admiral. How near this mad youth is to a genius, a hero, or to an angler, who injures his health and risks his life by going into the water as high as his middle, in the hope of catching a fish which he sees rise, though he already has a pannier full.
Hal.—Or a statesman, working by all means, fair and foul, to obtain a blue ribband. Or a fox-hunter, risking his neck to see the hounds destroy an animal, which he preserves to be destroyed, and which is good for nothing. Or an aged, licentious voluptuary, using all the powers of a high and cultivated intellect to destroy the innocence of a beautiful virgin—for a transient gratification to render her miserable, and by making a flaw in an inestimable and brilliant gem, utterly to destroy its value.
Phys.—You might go on and cite almost all the objects of pursuit of rational beings, as, by distinction, they are called. But to return to your favourite amusement. I wonder, that, with such a passion for angling, you have never made an expedition in one of our whalers—with Captain Scoresby for instance: you would then have enjoyed sport of a new kind.
Hal.—I should like much to see a whale taken, but I do not think the sight worth the dangers and privations of such a voyage. It would only be an amusing spectacle and not an enterprise, unless indeed I employed myself the harpoon; and after all it must be a tedious operation, that of watching the sinking and rising of a fish obedient to a natural instinct, which, in this instance, is the cause of his death.
Poiet.—How?
Hal.—The whale, having no air bladder, can sink to the lowest depths of the ocean, and, mistaking the harpoon for the teeth of a sword fish or a shark, he instantly descends, this being his manner of freeing himself from these enemies, who cannot bear the pressure of a deep ocean, and from ascending and descending in small space, he puts himself in the power of the whaler; where as, if he knew his force, and were to swim on the surface in a straight line, he would break or destroy the machinery by which he is arrested, as easily as a salmon breaks the single gut of a fisher when his reel is entangled.
Poiet.—My amusement in such a voyage would be to look for the kraken and the sea snake.
Hal.—You have a vivid imagination, and might see them.
Poiet.—Then you do not believe in the existence of these wonderful animals?
Hal.—No more than I do in that of the merman, or mermaid.
Poiet.—Yet we have histories, which seem authentic, of the appearance of these monsters, and there are not wanting persons who assert, that they have seen the mermaid even in these islands.
Hal.—I disbelieve the authenticity of these stories. I do not mean to deny the existence of large marine animals having analogies to the serpent; the conger we know is such an animal: I have seen one nearly ten feet long, and there may be longer ones, but such animals do not come to the surface. The only sea snake, that has been examined by naturalists, turned out to be a putrid species of shark—the squalus maximus. Yet all the newspapers gave accounts of this as a real animal, and endowed it with feet, which do not belong to serpents. And the sea snakes, seen by American and Norwegian captains, have, I think, generally been a company of porpoises, the rising and sinking of which in lines would give somewhat the appearance of the coils of a snake. The kraken, or island fish, is still more imaginary. I have myself seen immense numbers of enormous urticæ marinæ, or blubbers, in the north seas, and in some of the Norwegian fiords, or inland bays, and often these beautiful creatures give colour to the water; but it is exceedingly improbable, that an animal of this genus should ever be of the size, even of the whale; its soft materials are little fitted for locomotion, and would be easily destroyed by every kind of fish. Hands and a finny tail are entirely contrary to the analogy of nature, and I disbelieve the mermaid upon philosophical principles. The dugong and manatee are the only animals combining the functions of the mammalia with some of the characters of fishes, that can be imagined, even as a link, this part of the order of nature. Many of these stories have been founded upon the long-haired seal seen at a distance, others on the appearance of the common seal under particular circumstances of light and shade, and some on still more singular circumstances. A worthy baronet, remarkable for his benevolent views and active spirit, has propagated a story of this kind, and he seems to claim for his native country the honour of possessing this extraordinary animal; but the mermaid of Caithness was certainly a gentleman, who happened to be travelling on that wild shore, and who was seen bathing by some young ladies at so great a distance, that not only genus but gender was mistaken. I am acquainted with him, and have had the story from his own mouth. He is a young man, fond of geological pursuits, and one day in the middle of August, having fatigued and heated himself by climbing a rock to examine a particular appearance of a granite, he gave his clothes to his Highland guide, who was taking care of his pony, and descended to the sea. The sun was just setting, and he amused himself for some time by swimming from rock to rock, and having unclipped hair and no cap, he sometimes threw aside his locks, and wrung the water from them on the rocks. He happened the year after to be at Harrowgate, and was sitting at table with two young ladies from Caithness, who were relating to a wondering audience the story of the mermaid they had seen, which had already been published in the newspapers: they described her, as she usually is described by poets, as a beautiful animal, with remarkably fair skin, and long green hair. The young gentleman took the liberty, as most of the rest of the company did, to put a few questions to the elder of the two ladies—such as, on what day and precisely where this singular phenomenon had appeared. She had noted down, not merely the day, but the hour and minute, and produced a map of the place. Our bather referred to his journal, and showed, that a human animal was swimming in the very spot at that very time, who had some of the characters ascribed to the mermaid, but who laid no claim to others, particularly the green hair and fish’s tail; but being rather sallow in the face, was glad to have such testimony to the colour of his body beneath his garments.
Poiet.—But I do not understand upon what philosophical principles you deny the existence of the mermaid. We are not necessarily acquainted with all the animals that inhabit the bottom of the sea; and I cannot help thinking there must have been some foundation for the fable of the Tritons and Nereids.
Hal.—Ay; and of the ocean divinities, Neptune and Amphitrite!
Poiet.—Now I think you are prejudiced.
Hal.—I remember the worthy baronet, whom I just now mentioned, on some one praising the late Sir Joseph Banks very highly, said, “Sir Joseph was an excellent man—but he had his prejudices.” What were they? said my friend. “Why, he did not believe in the mermaid.” Pray still consider me as the baronet did Sir Joseph—prejudiced on this subject.
Orn.—But give us some reasons for the impossibility of the existence of this animal.
Hal.—Nay, I did not say impossibility; I am too much of the school of Isaac Walton to talk of impossibility. It doubtless might please God to make a mermaid; but I do not believe God ever did make one.
Orn.—And why?
Hal.—Because wisdom and order are found in all his works, and the parts of animals are always in harmony with each other, and always adapted to certain ends consistent with the analogy of nature; and a human head, human hands, and human mammæ, are wholly inconsistent with a fish’s tail. The human head is adapted for an erect posture, and in such a posture an animal with a fish’s tail could not swim; and a creature with lungs must be on the surface several times in a day—and the sea is an inconvenient breathing place; and hands are instruments of manufacture—and the depths of the ocean are little fitted for fabricating that mirror which our old prints gave to the mermaid. Such an animal, if created, could not long exist; and, with scarcely any locomotive powers, would be the prey of other fishes, formed in a manner more suited to their element. I have seen a most absurd fabrication of a mermaid, exposed as a show in London, said to have been found in the Chinese seas, and bought for a large sum of money. The head and bust of two different apes were fastened to the lower part of a kipper salmon, which had the fleshy fin, and all the distinct characters, of the salmo salar.
Orn.—And yet there were people who believed this to be a real animal.
Hal.—It was insisted on, to prove the truth of the Caithness story. But what is there which people will not believe?
Poiet.—In listening to your conversation we have forgotten our angling, and have lost some moments of fine cloudy weather.
Hal.—I thought you were tired of catching trouts and graylings, and I therefore did not urge you to continue your fly-fishing; and this part of the river does not contain so many grayling as the pools above—but there are good trout, and it is possible there may be huchos. Let me recommend to you to put on minnow tackle—that tackle with the five small hooks; and, as we have minnows and bleaks, you may perhaps hook trout, or even huchos; and in half an hour our fish dinner at the inn will be ready. I shall return there, to see that all is right, and shall expect you when you have finished your fishing.
[They all meet in the dining-room of the inn.]
Hal.—Well, what sort of sport have you had since I left you?
Poiet.—We have each caught a trout and two large chubs, and have had two or three runs besides—but we saw no huchos; and though several large grayling rose in one of the streams, and we tried to catch them by spinning the minnow in every possible way, yet they took no notice of our bait.
Hal.—This is usually the case. I have heard of anglers who have taken grayling with minnows, but it is a rare occurrence, and never happened to me. Your dinner, I dare say, is now ready; and you know it is a dinner entirely of the genus salmo, with vegetables and fruit. You have hucho from the Traun, and char from Aussee, and trout from the Traun See, that were brought alive to the inn, and have only just been killed and crimped, and are now boiling in salt and water; and you have likewise grayling and laverets from the Traun See, which are equally fresh, and will be fried.
Phys.—I think, in this part of the continent, the art of carrying and keeping fish is better understood than in England. Every inn has a box containing grayling, trout, carp, or char, into which water from a spring runs; and no one thinks of carrying or sending dead fish for a dinner. A fish barrel full of cool water, which is replenished at every fresh source amongst these mountains, is carried on the shoulders of the fisherman. And the fish, when confined in wells, are fed with bullock’s liver, cut into fine pieces, so that they are often in better season in the tank or stew than when they were taken. I have seen trout, grayling, and char even, feed voraciously, and take their food almost from the hand. These methods of carrying and preserving fish have, I believe, been adopted from the monastic establishments. At Admondt, in Styria, attached to the magnificent monastery of that name, are abundant ponds and reservoirs for every species of fresh water fish; and the char, grayling, and trout are preserved in different waters—covered, enclosed, and under lock and key.
Poiet.—I admire in this country not only the mode of preserving, carrying, and dressing fish, but I am delighted, generally, with the habits of life of the peasants, and with their manners. It is a country in which I should like to live; the scenery is so beautiful, the people so amiable and good-natured, and their attentions to strangers so marked by courtesy and disinterestedness.
Phys.—They appear to me very amiable and good; but all classes seem to be little instructed.
Poiet.—There are few philosophers amongst them, certainly; but they appear very happy, and
We have neither seen nor heard of any instances of crime since we have been here. They fear their God, love their sovereign, are obedient to the laws, and seem perfectly contented. I know you would contrast them with the active and educated peasantry of the manufacturing districts of England; but I believe they are much happier, and I am sure they are generally better.
Phys.—I doubt this: the sphere of enjoyment, as well as of benevolence, is enlarged by education.
Poiet.—I am sorry to say I think the system carried too far in England. God forbid, that any useful light should be extinguished! Let persons who wish for education receive it; but it appears to me, that, in the great cities in England, it is, as it were, forced upon the population; and that sciences, which the lower classes can only very superficially acquire, are presented to them; in consequence of which they often become idle and conceited, and above their usual laborious occupations. The unripe fruit of the tree of knowledge is, I believe, always bitter or sour; and scepticism and discontent—sicknesses of the mind—are often the results of devouring it.
Hal.—Surely you cannot have a more religious, more moral, or more improved population than that of Scotland?
Poiet.—Precisely so. In Scotland, education is not forced upon the people—it is sought for, and is connected with their forms of faith, acquired in the bosoms of their families, and generally pursued with a distinct object of prudence or interest: nor is that kind of education wanting in this country.
Phys.—Where a book is rarely seen, a newspaper never.
Poiet.—Pardon me—there is not a cottage without a prayer book; and I am not sorry, that these innocent and happy men are not made active and tumultuous subjects of King Press, whom I consider as the most capricious, depraved, and unprincipled tyrant, that ever existed in England. Depraved—for it is to be bought by great wealth; capricious—because it sometimes follows, and sometimes forms, the voice of the lowest mob; and unprincipled—because, when its interests are concerned, it sets at defiance private feeling and private character, and neither regards their virtue, dignity, nor purity.
Hal.—My friends, you are growing warm. I know you differ essentially on this subject; but surely you will allow that the full liberty of the press, even though it sometimes degenerates into licentiousness, and though it may sometimes be improperly used by the influence of wealth, power, or private favour, is yet highly advantageous, and even essential to the existence of a free country; and, useful as it may be to the population, it is still more useful to the government, to whom, as expressing the voice of the people, though not always vox Dei, it may be regarded as oracular or prophetic.—But let us change our conversation, which is neither in time nor place.
Poiet.—This river must be inexhaustible for sport: I have nowhere seen so many fish.
Hal.—However full a river may be of trout and grayling, there is a certain limit to the sport of the angler, if continuous fishing be adopted in the same pools. Every fish is in its turn made acquainted by diurnal habit with the artificial fly, and either taken or rendered cautious; so that, in a river fished much by one or two good anglers, many fish cannot be caught, except under peculiar circumstances of very windy, rainy, or cloudy weather, when many flies come on; or at night, or at the time the water is slightly coloured by a flood, or when fish change their haunts in consequence of a great inundation. In the Usk, in Monmouthshire, when it was very full of fish in the best fishing time, when the spring brown and dun flies were on the water, it was not usual for some excellent anglers, who composed a party of nine, and who fished in this river for ten continuous days, to catch more than two or three fish each person. But one day, when the water was coloured by a flood, in which case the artificial fly could not be distinguished by the fish from the natural fly, I caught twelve or fourteen of the same fish, that had been in the habit of refusing my flies for many days successively. This was in the end of March, 1809, when the flies always came on the water with great regularity; the blues in dark days, the browns in bright days, between twelve and two o’clock in the middle of the day. In rivers where the artificial fly has never been used, I believe all the fish will mistake good imitations for natural flies, and in their turn, to use an angler’s phrase, “taste the steel;” but even very imperfect imitations and coarse tackle, which are only successful at night or in turbid water, are sufficient to render fish cautious. This I am convinced of, by observing the difference of the habits of fish in strictly preserved streams, and in streams where even peasants have fished with the coarsest tackle. I might quote the Traun at Ischl, where the native fisherman used three or four of the coarsest flies on the coarsest hair links made of four or five or six hairs, and the Traun at Gmunden, where they are not allowed to fish. The fish that rose took with much more certainty at Gmunden than at Ischl.
At a time when many flies are on, particularly large ones, a few days of continuous fishing, even with a single rod, will soon make the sport indifferent in the best rivers; but the larger and the deeper the river the longer it continues, because fish change their stations occasionally, and pricked fish sometimes leave their haunts, which are occupied by others; and graylings are more disposed to change their places than trouts.
As instances of the difference in this respect between large and small rivers, I may quote the Vockla and the Agger in Upper Austria. The first of these rivers, when I fished in it in 1818, was full of trout and grayling, and I believe I was the first person, for at least many years, that had ever thrown an artificial fly upon it. It is a small stream, from eight to fifteen yards wide, and can every where be commanded by the double-handed rod, and is generally shallow. The first day that I fished in this stream, which was in the beginning of August, at every throw I hooked a fish, and I took out and restored again to their element in the course of a few hours more than one hundred and fifty trout and grayling. The next day I fished in the same places, but with a very different result: I caught only half a dozen large fish: the third morning, going over the same ground, I had great difficulty even to get a brace of fish for my dinner, and those, as well as I recollect, I caught by throwing in places which had not been fished before. I ought to mention, that the space of water where this experiment was made did not exceed half a mile in length. I shall now speak of the Agger, which is a much larger and deeper river than the Vockla, and cannot be commanded in any part by a double-handed rod, being at least from forty to sixty yards across. The first time I fished this river, I had the same kind of sport as in the Vockla; the second day, under the same favourable circumstances, there were fewer rises than on the first day, but still sufficient to give good sport; and it was the fourth day before it became difficult to catch a good dish of fish, and necessary to seek new water. The greater depth of the water, and the change of place of the fish, particularly the grayling, explain this, to say nothing of the greater number of fish which the larger river contained. I am, of course, speaking of one of the best periods of fly-fishing, when many large flies, of which imitations are easily found, have been on the water. In spring (a bad season for fly-fishing in high Alpine countries) I have thrown great varieties of flies on these two highly stocked streams, and have found it difficult to get a brace of fish for the table, as the trout and grayling were all lying at the bottom, not expecting any winged food at this season.
A river that runs into a large lake affords, at its junction with the lake, by far the best place for continuous angling, particularly for trout in autumn. The fish are constantly running up the river for the purpose of spawning, and every day offers a succession of new shoals, of which many will take the fly; I say many, because at this season some of the fish, particularly the females, are capricious, and refuse a bait, of which, under other circumstances they are greedy. I may say the same with respect to the exit of a river from a lake, to which successions of fishes resort, and though trout are found abundantly in such places, yet they are often still better places for grayling when these fish exist in the lake, the tendency of grayling being rather, as I said on another occasion, to descend than to ascend waters, whilst that of the trout is the contrary. The same principles apply to salmon and sea-trout fishing, which run up rivers from basins of the sea: the best situations for continuous angling are those parts of the river where there is a succession of fishes from the tide.
Poiet.—You spoke just now of peasants fishing with the fly in Austria: I thought this art was entirely English; and though I have travelled much, I do not recollect ever to have seen fly-fishing practised by native anglers abroad.
Hal.—I assure you there are fishers with the artificial fly in different parts of Switzerland, Germany, and Illyria, though always with rude tackle, and usually upon rapid streams. Besides the Traun I can mention the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Drave, as rivers where I have seen fish caught with rude imitations of flies used by native anglers. In Italy, where trout and grayling are very rare, and only found amongst the highest mountain chains, I have never seen any fly-fishers, but near Ravenna I have sometimes seen anglers for frogs, who threw their bait exactly as we throw a fly, and caught great numbers of these animals: and the nature of their apparatus surprised me more than their method of using it. Instead of a hook and bait they employed a small dry frog, tied to a long piece of twine, the fore legs of which projected like two hooks, and this they threw at a distance, by means of a long rod. The frogs rose like fish and gorged the small dry frog, by the legs of which they were pulled out of the water. I was informed by one of these fishermen, that he sometimes took 200 frogs in this way in a morning, and that the frogs never swallowed any bait when still or apparently dead, but caught at whatever was moving or appeared alive on the surface of the water; so that this amphibia feeds like a nobler animal, the eagle, only on living prey.
Poiet.—You say trout are rare in Italy, yet on Ash-wednesday, a great day for the consumption of fish in Rome, I remember to have seen some large trout, which, I was told, were from the Velino, above the falls of Terni.
Hal.—I once went almost to the source of this river, above Rieti, in the hopes of catching trout, but I was unsuccessful. I saw some taken by nets, but the fish were too few, and the river too foul, from the deposition of calcareous matter, to render it a good stream for the angler. In this journey I saw some trout in brooks in the Sabine country, that I dare say might have been taken by the fly, but they were small, and like the brook trout of England. In these streams, as well as in the Velino and other torrents, I found the water-ouzel, which, as far as my knowledge extends, is always a companion of the trout, and I believe feeds much upon the same larvæ or water-flies.
Orn.—These singular little birds, as I have witnessed, walk under water. I have often watched them running beneath the surface of the sides of streams, and passing between stones. I conclude they were then in the act of searching for, or feeding upon larvæ.
Hal.—I suppose so, and I hope Ornither will shoot one to give us an opportunity of examining the contents of their stomachs, and of knowing with certainty the nature of their food.
Phys.—The char[8] is a most beautiful and excellent fish, and is, of course, a fish of prey. Is he not an object of sport to the angler?
Hal.—They generally haunt deep cool lakes, and are seldom found at the surface till late in the autumn. When they are at the surface, however, they will take either fly or minnow. I have known some caught in both these ways; and have myself taken a char, even in summer, in one of those beautiful, small, deep lakes in the Upper Tyrol, near Nazereit; but it was where a cool stream entered from the mountain; and the fish did not rise, but swallowed the artificial fly under water. The char is always in its colour a very brilliant fish, but in different countries there are many varieties in the tint. I do not remember ever to have seen more beautiful fish than those of Aussee, which, when in perfect season, have the lower fins and the belly of the brightest vermilion, with a white line on the outside of the pectoral, ventral, anal, and lower part of the caudal fin, and with vermilion spots, surrounded by the bright olive shade of the sides and back: the dorsal fin in the char has 11 spines, the pectoral 14, the ventral 9, the anal 10, and the caudal 20. I have fished for them in many lakes, without success, both in England and Scotland, and also amongst the Alps; and I am told the only sure way of taking them is by sinking a line with a bullet, and a hook having a live minnow attached to it, in the deep water which they usually haunt; and in this way, likewise, I have no doubt the umbla, or ombre chevalier, might be taken.
Poiet.—I have never happened to see this fish.
Hal.—It is very like char in form, but is without spots, and has a white and silvery belly. On the table, its flesh cuts white or cream-colour, and it is exceedingly like char in flavour. Feb. 11, 1827, one was brought me from the lake of Bourget, in Savoy; it was said to be small for this fish; it was 15 inches long, and 7½ in circumference. In the dorsal fin there were 12 spines, in the pectoral 9, in the ventral 8, in the anal 11, and in the caudal 24.
Poiet.—Is it found in this country?
Hal.—From some descriptions I have heard of certain species of the salmo found in the Maun See, Traun See, and Leopoldstadt See, I think it is. Bloch says, that it is peculiar to the lakes of Geneva and Neufchatel; but what I have just said must convince you of the inaccuracy of this statement, as I dare say the fish exists in other deep waters of a like character amongst the Alps. It is a fish closely allied to the char, and congenerous both in form and habits.
Phys.—You mentioned, among the fish for dinner, the laveret: I never heard of this fish before.
Hal.—It is a fish known in England by the name of shelley, or fresh water herring; in Wales, by that of guinead; in Ireland, by that of pollan; and in Scotland, by that of vengis. In colour it is most like a grayling, but with broader and larger scales: it is common in the large lakes of most Alpine countries, and is known at Geneva by the name of ferra; and I believe that the salmo ceruleus, or wartmann of Bloch, or the gang-fisch of the lake of Constante, from a comparison that I made of it with the ferra, is a variety of the same fish. It sometimes is as large as 2lbs.; and when quite fresh, and well fried or boiled, is an exceedingly good fish, and calvers like a grayling. The laveret of different lakes has appeared to me to vary in the number of the spines in the fins. One, brought me from the lake of Zurich, 13 inches long, and 8 inches in girth, had 12 spines in the dorsal fin, 15 in the pectoral fins, 11 in the ventral, 13 in the anal, and 18 in the caudal. The gang-fisch, from the lake of Constanz, which was of a bluer colour, but, I think decidedly, only a variety of the same fish, was 7¾ inches long, and 4 in girth, had 12 spines in the dorsal fin, 15 in the pectoral, 11 in the ventral, 12 in the anal, and 18 in the caudal. A laveret, from the Traun See, had 12 spines in the dorsal fin, 17 in the pectoral, 13 in the ventral fin, 12 in the anal fin, and 24 in the caudal fin. One from the Hallstadt See was a larger and broader fish, but did not differ from the laveret, of the Traun See, except in having two spines less in the tail.
Poiet.—Is this fish ever taken with the line?
Hal.—I believe only with nets. It feeds on vegetables; and in the stomachs of those I have opened, I have never found either flies or small fishes.
Orn.—Now the hucho is dressed, and on the same table with other species of the salmo, I perceive his peculiarities more distinctly; and, in addition to those you have mentioned, he appears to me to have a stronger upper jaw, and a larger projection of bone below the orbit of the eye.
Hal.—He has; and you will find a similar character in the pike and perch, and, I believe, in most fishes of prey; and the use of it seems to be, to strengthen the fulcrum of the lever on which the lower jaw moves, so as to afford the means of greater strength to the whole muscular apparatus, by means of which the fish seizes his prey.
Poiet.—These fishes, then, are analogous to the predatory animals of the feline genus, which have this part of the head exceedingly strong; and it is here that the craniologists or phrenologists fix the organ of courage: does not this extensive chain of analogies offer an argument in favour of this long agitated and generally unpopular doctrine?
Phys.—In my opinion, it offers, like most of the facts which have been brought forward to prove the truths of the view of Gall and Spurzheim, an argument rather unfavourable, when thoroughly and minutely examined.
Poiet.—How?
Phys.—In these rapacious and predatory animals, the organization of the head must be connected with the functions of the jaws, as the construction of the shoulder-blade must be related to the use of the fore leg, which, being intended to strike and seize by talons, must have a powerful support and a strong bony apparatus in the shoulder, which might as well be called the organ of courage as the projection below the frontal bone: but these animals have no more what is called courage in man, than they have what is called reason: they face danger when they are hungry, but almost always fly when their appetite is satisfied: a hen, in defending her chickens against a powerful dog, or the game cock, in fighting for the female, or the timid stag, at the time of the sexual intercourse, shows quite as much of this quality as the most ferocious royal tiger. Courage is the result of strong passions or strong motives; and in man it usually results from the love of glory or the fear of shame; and it appears to me a perfectly absurd idea, that of connecting it with an organ, which is merely intended to assist the predatory habits and the mastication of a carnivorous animal.
Hal.—I agree with Physicus in this view of the subject. I once heard a physiologist of some reputation deducing an argument in favour of craniology from the form of the skull of the beaver, which he called a constructive animal, and contended, that there was something of the same character in the skulls of distinguished architects: now, the skull of the beaver is so formed, that he is able to use his jaws for cutting down the trees with which he makes his dam; and if this analogy were correct, the architect ought unquestionably to employ his teeth for the same purpose; and though I have known distinguished men, who have been in the habit of using knives for cutting furniture with a sort of nervous restlessness of hand, I do not recollect to have heard of the teeth being employed in the same way; and I think it would be quite as correct, to find the architectural or constructive organ in the opposite part of the body, the tail, as the beaver makes a more ingenious use of this part than even of his mouth. Pray, have you ever observed, Poietes, any particular protuberance in the nether parts of any of our distinguished architects?
Poiet.—I am not a craniologist; but I would have the doctrine overturned by facts, and not by ridicule; and I have certainly seen some remarkable instances, which were favourable to the system.
Hal.—My experience is entirely on the opposite side; and I once saw a distinguished craniologist in error on a point, which he considered as the most decided. He was shown two children, one of whom was possessed of great mathematical acquirements, the other of extraordinary musical taste. With the utmost confidence he pronounced judgment, and was mistaken. It appeared to me, that, whilst he was examining the two heads, he hummed an air, which, being out of tune, was not responded to by the musical child; but somehow struck the fancy of the mathematical one.
Orn.—This hucho is a very good fish, and, indeed, I can praise all the varieties of the salmon on the table that I have yet tasted.
Phys.—Amongst them, I prefer the char, which, I think, is even better than the best fresh salmon I ever tasted.
Poiet.—This char is surprisingly red and full of curd; I wonder at its fat: It comes from the Grundtl See, which is a high Alpine lake, covered with ice more than half the year: what food can the fish find in so pure and cold a water?
Hal.—Minnows and small chubs are found in this lake; and the flies which haunt it in summer have been aquatic larvæ in the autumn, winter, and spring; and there are usually great quantities of small shell fish, which live in the deeper parts of this water; so that char may find food even in winter; and cold, or the repose to which it leads, seems favourable to the development or conservation of fat. Most of the polar animals (the whale, moose, seal, and white bear, for instance) are loaded with this substance; and the salmon of the Arctic Ocean are remarkable for their quantity of curd: those that run up the rivers in Russia from the White Sea are said to be fatter and better, than those caught in the streams which run into the Baltic.
Orn.—I agree with Physicus in his praise of the char: we are indebted to you for an excellent entertainment.
Hal.—At Lintz, on the Danube, I could have given you a fish dinner of a different description, which you might have liked as a variety. The four kinds of perch, the spiegel carpfen, and the siluris glanis; all good fish, and which I am sorry we have not in England, where I doubt not they might be easily naturalized, and they would form an admirable addition to the table in inland counties. Since England has become Protestant, the cultivation of fresh water fish has been much neglected. The burbot, or lotte, which already exists in some of the streams tributary to the Trent, and which is a most admirable fish, might be diffused without much difficulty; and nothing could be more easy than to naturalize the spiegel carpfen and siluris; and I see no reason why the perca lucio perca and zingel should not succeed in some of our clear lakes and ponds, which abound in coarse fish. The new Zoölogical Society, I hope, will attempt something of this kind; and it will be a better object than introducing birds and beast of prey—though I have no objection to any source of rational amusement or philosophical curiosity.
Poiet.—A fish dinner such as you have just described, combined with one such as we have enjoyed to-day, might, I think, be made an interesting experimental lecture on natural history. The analogies of the different species and genera of fishes, so distinct in the form of their organs, are likewise marked in the appearance and taste of their flesh. The salmon and the char may be regarded as the generic types of the salmo. By trout, which have sometimes red and sometimes white flesh, they are connected with the grayling and hucho. By the grayling the trout is connected with the laveret, and by the laveret the genus salmo is connected with the carp genus. The char is immediately connected with the grayling, and laveret by the umbula. By the sea trout the salmon is connected with the trout; and by the hucho, with the pike and perch families.
Hal.—We will arrange a dinner of this kind in England, and by means of it follow the analogies of salt and fresh water fishes. But the time for our parting is almost arrived.—Let us drink a glass each of this old wine of the Danube to our next happy meeting, and go and take a last look of the Fall of Traun, whilst our carriages are preparing.
[They walk to the rock above the Fall of the Traun.]
Hal.—See, the cataract is now in great beauty; the river above is coloured by the setting sun, and the glow of the rosy light on the upper stream is beautifully and wonderfully contrasted with the tints of the cataract below. Have you ever seen any thing so fine?
Poiet.—The lights are beautiful; but I have certainly seen a finer combination of features in the Fall of the Velino, at Terni, though that water is not clear; but, even with this defect, it is certainly the most perfect of European falls. This cascade of the Traun, though not so elevated as that of Terni, and not so large as that of Schaffhausen, yet, from its perfect clearness, and the harmony of the surrounding objects, ranks high, as to picturesque effect, amongst the waterfalls of Europe; and the wonderful transparency of its pale-green water gives it a peculiar charm in my eyes, enhanced as it is now by the light of the glowing western sky; and the tints of the quadrant iris on its spray are not brighter than those of its stream and foam.
Orn.—We have now followed this water at least thirty miles, and wherever we have seen it, it has always displayed the same characters of clearness and rapidity—of green stream and white foam; and we have traced it from the snowy mountains of Styria to the plains of Upper Austria, where it serves to purify the darker Danube. How is it, that it has preserved its transparency, though so many of its tributary streams have been foul, either from the thunder storm, or from the sudden melting of snows?
Hal.—The three small lakes and the two larger ones, which are in fact its reservoirs, are the cause of this. The Gründtl See furnishes its principal stream, and this lake is fed by two others—Töplitz See and Lahngen See; and the tributary streams, which unite at Aussee, from Alten Aussee and Oden See, though one is blue and the other yellow, yet combine to give a tint, which is nearly the same as that from the stream of the Gründtl See, and which the river retains throughout its course Yet I have seen even this river very foul, but only in a part of its course, below Ischel. I was once at that place, when the thunder storm of a night having washed the dust of the roads into the river, it was extremely turbid from Ischel to the Traun See. It rendered the upper part of this large lake coloured; but, notwithstanding this, the river came from the lower part of it perfectly clear, and I caught fish in it there with a fly, which, at its entrance into the lake was quite impossible.
Poiet.—You, Halieus, must certainly have considered the causes which produce the colours of waters. The streams of our own island are of a very different colour from these mountain rivers, and why should the same element or substance assume such a variety of tints?
Hal.—I certainly have often thought upon the subject, and I have made some observations and one experiment in relation to it. I will give you my opinion with pleasure, and, as far as I know, they have not been brought forward in any of the works on the properties of water, or on its consideration as a chemical element. The purest water with which we are acquainted is undoubtedly that which falls from the atmosphere. Having touched air alone, it can contain nothing but what it gains from the atmosphere, and it is distilled without the chance of those impurities, which may exist in the vessels used in an artificial operation. We cannot well examine the water precipitated from the atmosphere, as rain, without collecting it in vessels, and all artificial contact gives more or less of contamination; but in snow, melted by the sunbeams, that has fallen on glaciers, themselves formed from frozen snow, water may be regarded as in its state of greatest purity. Congelation expels both salts and air from water, whether existing below, or formed in, the atmosphere; and in the high and uninhabited regions of glaciers, there can scarcely be any substances to contaminate. Removed from animal and vegetable life, they are even above the mineral kingdom; and though there are instances in which the rudest kind of vegetation (of the fungus or mucor kind) is even found upon snows, yet this is a rare occurrence; and red snow, which is occasioned by it, is an extraordinary and not a common phenomenon towards the pole, and on the highest mountains of the globe. Having examined the water formed from melted snow on glaciers in different parts of the Alps, and having always found it of the same quality, I shall consider it as pure water, and describe its characters. Its colour, when it has any depth, or when a mass of it is seen through, is bright blue; and, according to its greater or less depth of substance, it has more or less of this colour: as its insipidity, and its other physical qualities, are not at this moment objects of your inquiry, I shall not dwell upon them. In general, in examining lakes and masses of water in high mountains, their colour is of the same bright azure. And Captain Parry states, that the water on the Polar ice has the like beautiful tint. When vegetables grow in lakes, the colour becomes nearer the sea green, and as the quantity of impregnation from their decay increases—greener, yellowish green, and at length, when the vegetable extract is large in quantity—as in countries where peat is found—yellow, and even brown. To mention instances, the Lake of Geneva, fed from sources (particularly the higher Rhone) formed from melting snow, is blue; and the Rhone pours from it, dyed of the deepest azure, and retains partially this colour till it is joined by the Soane, which gives to it a greener hue. The Lake of Morat, on the contrary, which is fed from a lower country, and from less pure sources, is grass green. And there is an illustrative instance in some small lakes fed from the same source, in the road from Inspruck to Stutgard, which I observed in 1815 (as well as I recollect) between Nazareit and Reiti. The highest lake fed by melted snows in March, when I saw it, was bright blue. It discharged itself by a small stream into another, into which a number of large pines had been blown by a winter storm, or fallen from some other cause: in this lake its colour was blue green. In a third lake, in which there were not only pines and their branches, but likewise other decaying vegetable matter, it had a tint of faded grass green; and these changes had occurred in a space not much more than a mile in length. These observations I made in 1815: on returning to the same spot twelve years after, in August and September, I found the character of the lakes entirely changed. The pine wood washed into the second lake had disappeared; a large quantity of stones and gravel, washed down by torrents, or detached by an avalanche, supplied their place: there was no perceptible difference of tint in the two upper lakes; but the lower one, where there was still some vegetable matter, seemed to possess a greener hue. The same principle will apply to the Scotch and Irish rivers, which, when they rise or issue from pure rocky sources, are blue, or bluish green; and when fed from peat bogs, or alluvial countries, yellow, or amber-coloured, or brown—even after they have deposited a part of their impurities in great lakes. Sometimes, though rarely, mineral impregnations give colour to water: small streams are sometimes green or yellow from ferruginous depositions. Calcareous matters seldom affect their colour, but often their transparency, when deposited, as is the case with the Velino at Terni, and the Anio at Trivoli; but I doubt if pure saline matters, which are in themselves white, ever change the tint of water.