SIXTH DAY.

HALIEUS-POIETES-ORNITHER-PHYSICUS.

MORNING.

HAL.-Well met, my friends! It is a fine warm morning, there is a fresh breeze, the river is in excellent order for fishing, and I trust our good behaviour yesterday will ensure us sport to-day. There must be a great many fresh run fish in the pool; and after twentyfour hours' rest, some of those that were indisposed to take on Saturday evening, may have acquired appetite. Prepare your tackle, and begin but whilst you are preparing, I will mention a circumstance which every accomplished fly fisher ought to know. You changed your flies on Saturday with the change of weather, putting the dark flies on for the bright gleams of the sun, and the gaudy flies

when the dark clouds appeared: now, I will tell you of another principle, which it is as necessary to know as the change of flies for change of weather; I allude to the different kinds of fly to be used in particular pools, and even for particular parts of pools. You have fished in this deep pool; and if you were to change it for a shallower one, such as that above, it would be proper to use smaller flies of the same colour; and in a pool still deeper, larger flies; likewise in the rough rapid at the top, a larger fly may be used than below at the tail of the water and in the Tweed or Tay, I have often changed my fly thrice in the same pool, and sometimes with success-using three different flies for the top, middle, and bottom. I remember, that when I first saw Lord Somerville adopt this fashion, I thought there was fancy in it; but experience soon proved to me how accomplished a salmon fisher was my excellent and lamented friend, and I adopted the lesson he taught me, and with good results, in all bright waters.

POIET. I will try the correctness of your principle. Look at the fly now on my line; where would you recommend me to cast it?

HAL. It is a large gaudy fly, and is fit for

no part of this pool, except the extremely rough head of the torrent: there I dare say it will take in this state of the waters.

POIET.-Good, I hooked a large fish, but alas! he is off: Yet I thought he was fairly caught.

HAL. The hook, I think, turned round at the moment you struck, and carried off some scales from the outside of his mouth.

POIET. You are right: see, the scales are on the hook. I cannot raise another fish: I have tried almost all over the pool. I thought I saw a fish rise at the tail of the rapid.

HAL. You did: he refused the fly. Now put on a fly one third of the size and of the same colour, and I think you will hook that fish.

POIET. I have done so-and he is fast; and a fine fish; I thing a salmon.

HAL.-It is a salmon, and one above 10lbs. Play him with care, and do not let him run into the rough part of the stream, where the large stones are.

POIET. It is, I think, the most active fish I have yet played with. See how high he leaps! He is making for the sea.

HAL.-Hold him tight, or you will lose him.

POIET.-Fear me not. I trust, in spite of You see, I

his strength, I shall turn him.

show him the but of the rod, and his force is counterpoised by a very long lever.

HAL.-You do well. But he has made a violent spring, and, I fear, is off.

POIET. He is !-but not, I think, by any fault of mine he has carried off something.

HAL. You played that fish so well, that I am angry at his loss: either the hook, link, or line, failed you.

POIET. It is the hook, which you see is broken, and not merely at the barb, but likewise in the shank. What a fool I was ever

to use one

made hooks.

of these London or Birmingham

HAL. The thing has happened to me often. I now never use any hooks for salmon fishing, except those which I am sure have been made by O'Shaughnessy, of Limerick; for even those made in Dublin, though they seldom break, yet they now and then bend; and the English hooks, made of cast steel in imitation of Irish ones, are the worst of all. There is a fly nearly of the same colour as that which is destroyed; and I can tell you, that I saw it made at Limerick by O'Shaughnessy himself,

and tied on one of his own hooks. Should you catch with it a fish even of 30lbs. I will answer for its strength and temper: it will neither break nor bend.

POIET. Whilst I am attaching your present, so kindly made, to my line, pray tell me how these hooks are made, for I know you interested yourself in this subject when at Limerick.

HAL.-Most willingly. I have even made a hook, which, though a little inferior in form, in other respects, I think, I could boast as equal to the Limerick ones. The first requisite in hook-making is to find good malleable iron of the softest and purest kind-such as is procured from the nails of old horseshoes. This must be converted by cementation with charcoal into good soft steel, and that into bars or wires of different thickness for different sized hooks, and then annealed. For the larger hooks, the bars must be made in such a form as to admit of cutting the barbs; and each piece, which serves for two hooks, is larger at the ends, so that the bar appears in the form of a double pointed spear, three, four, or five inches long: the bars for the finer hooks are somewhat flattened. The ar