FISH POSSESSED OF LITTLE SENSIBILITY. 21 selves beneath the flowers and leaves of the water-lily; 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 till in pursuing your amusement in the calm and balmy evening, you are serenaded by the songs of the cheerful thrush and melodious nightingale, performing the offices of paternal love, in thickets ornamented with the rose and woodbine.

PHYS.-All these enjoyments might be obtained without the necessity of torturing and destroying an unfortunate animal, that the true lover of nature would wish to see happy in a scene of loveliness.

HAL.—If all men were Pythagoreans and professed the Brahmin's creed, it would undoubtedly be cruel to destroy any form of animated life; but if fish are to be eaten, I see no more harm in capturing them by skill and ingenuity with an artificial fly, than in pulling them out of the water by main force with the net; and in general, when taken by the common fishermen, fish are permitted to die slowly, and to suffer in the air, from the want of their natural element; whereas, every

good angler, as soon as his fish is landed, either destroys his life immediately, if he is wanted for food, or returns him into the water.

PHYS. But do you think nothing of the torture of the hook, and the fear of capture, and the misery of struggling against the powerful rod?

HAL.-I have already admitted the danger of analysing, too closely, the moral character of any of our field sports; yet I think it cannot be doubted that the nervous system of fish, and cold-blooded animals in general, is less sensitive than that of warm-blooded animals. The hook usually is fixed in the cartilaginous part of the mouth, where there are no nerves; and a proof that the sufferings of a hooked fish cannot be great is found in the circumstance, that though a trout has been hooked and played for some minutes, he will often, after his escape with the artificial fly in his mouth, take the natural fly, and feed as if nothing had happened; having apparently learnt only from the experiment, that the artificial fly is not proper food. And I have caught pikes with four or five hooks in their mouths, and tackle which they had broken

only a few minutes before; and the hooks seemed to have had no other effect than that of serving as a sort of sauce piquante, urging them to seize another morsel of the same kind.

PHYS.-Fishes are mute, and cannot plead, even in the way that birds and quadrupeds do, their own cause; yet the instances you quote only prove the intense character of their appetites, which seem not so moderate as Whiston imagined, in his strange philosophical romance on the Deluge; in which he supposes, that in the antediluvian world the heat was much greater than in this, and that all terrestrial and aerial animals had their passions so exalted by this high temperature, that they were lost in sin, and destroyed for their crimes; but that fish, living in a cooler element, were more correct in their lives, and were therefore spared from the destruction of the primitive world. You have proved, by your examples, the intensity of the appetite of hunger in fishes; Spalanzani has given us another proof of the violence of a different appetite, or instinct, in a cold-blooded animal, that has most of the habits of the genus-the frog; which, in the breeding season, remains attached to the female,

though a limb, or even his head, is removed from the body.

HAL. This is likewise in favour of my argument, that the sensibility of this class of animals to physical pain is comparatively small.

PHYS.-The advocates for a favourite pursuit never want sophisms to defend it. I have even heard it asserted, that a hare enjoys being hunted. Yet I will allow that fly-fishing, after your vindication, appears amongst the least cruel of field-sports;-I can go no farther; as I have never thought of trying it, I can say nothing of its agreeableness as an amusement, compared with hunting and shooting.

HAL.-I wish that you would allow me to convince you, that for a contemplative man, as you are, and a lover of nature, it is far superior, more tranquil, more philosophical, and, after the period of early youth, more fitted for a moderately active body and mind, requiring less violent exertion; and, pursued with discretion, affording an exercise conducive to health. There is a river, only a few miles off, where I am sure I could obtain permission for you, and our friend Poietes, to fish.

FIELD-SPORTS RELATED TO NAT. HIST. 25

PHYS.-I am open to conviction on all subjects, and have no objection to spend one Mayday with you in this idle occupation; premising, that you take at least one other companion, who really loves fishing.

HAL.-You, who are so fond of natural history, even should you not be amused by fishing, will, I am sure, find objects of interest on the banks of the river.

PHYS.-I fear I am not entomologist enough to fellow the life of the May-fly, but I shall willingly have my attention directed to its habits. Indeed, I have often regretted that sportsmen were not fonder of zoology; they have so many opportunities, which other persons do not possess, of illustrating the origin and qualities of some of the most curious forms of animated nature; the causes and character of the migrations of animals; their relations to each other, and their place and order in the general scheme of the universe. It has always appeared to me, that the two great sources of change of place of animals, was the providing of food for themselves, and resting-places and food for their young. The great supposed migrations of herrings from the poles to the temperate zone have appeared to me to be