will tak' the thoom o' yere mitten, if ye wad thraw it, and whiles they wadna look at the Lady o' Mackerston' (a favourite fly) and a' her braws.' Constantly changing water is not conducive to angling. A year or two ago some operations on Lough Erne led to the periodic opening of a dam, and the letting down of several inches of water. This was found to spoil utterly the angling chances of the lower river. Salmon take best when the surface of the water is broken, and consequently certain pools are only fishable in wind. But the angler, like the farmer, scarcely knows what weather to hope for. Nil ergo optabunt homines?' he may well ask. If there is wind, it is apt to bring down in the spring twigs and branches, in the autumn leaves; and both are detrimental to the attractions of his fly. In some waters salmon rise in pools or reaches which are comparatively still, but there are few fishermen who will not pray that it may not be their lot to have such a pool as their beat. If they have, it is well before they leave it in despair to try backfishing which consists in casting abreast and playing the fly by walking upwards. Fish lying in the tail of a stream are more apt to rise than those in the throat, perhaps because the latter are seeking upwards.' The joy of an angler is a broad tail, with enough current and enough depth; with stones enough to rest a fish, but with no deeps in which he can sulk. In such a bit of water we may hope for a rise at any moment, for every fish lying in it will be both able to see the fly and more or less disposed to take it. The next best place for fish to lie is a stream of even current; one of the less good, a deep pool where the water curls and eddies. Salmon soon begin to pair, and as a rule a male prefers a female approaching his own size. In the autumn, many fishermen having killed one fish try for the fellow; and instances have been known in which a fish, endeavouring to escape from the hook, has been followed over a pool by another fish, presumed, and not unreasonably so, to be its mate. There is, indeed, a story, for which we are not bold enough to vouch, of an occasion on which both fish-the hooked fish and the follower-were gaffed. If undisturbed, the alliance of the pair continues till the spawning-time. When on the redd' or spawning-bed, and even before it is reached, the male fish will furiously assault any other male which approaches his female. Marital disputes have led to the death of many a solitary male. The best place for redds' are smooth gravelly shallows of comparatively still reaches where change of current is not likely. But many less suitable places are selected, and much ova destroyed by floods. Mr. Scrope held that whole spawning-beds are swept away by spates on the Tweed, and from the same authority we find that the redds are entirely worked by the females, and that the old idea, in which the male was believed with his 'crook to dig out a place for the deposit of ova and milt, is unfounded. Certainly,' he says, it is difficult to divine what may be the use of this very ugly excrescence; but observation has proved that the male never assists in making the spawning-place; and indeed if he did so, he could not possibly make use of the elongation in question for that purpose, as it springs from the lower jaw and bends inwards towards the throat.' * Mr. Pennell is of the same opinion, and says that the only extra-matrimonial function that the male performs consists in exerting an unwearying vigilance to protect his seraglio from the invasion of rival males. And he also believes that the 'crook' is used solely as a weapon of offence. When the ova are deposited, the male milts over or near them, and the female covers them up. We say near, for it seems probable, if not conclusively proved, that no actual contact between milt and ova is necessary for vivifaction. It is preferable, however, that such contact should occur, and therefore artificial breeders invariably squeeze the milt of the male over the ova. Mr. Scrope asserts from actual experiment, and Mr. Pennell includes it among his proved facts,' that the milt of smolts is capable of vivifying the ova of an adult salmon; and the latter declares, that while the female parr or smolts rarely if ever spawn, the deposit of milt by the male is of common occurrence. Mr. Willis Blund includes among his unsolved problems, the question, Is there any difference in the size and health of smolts bred respectively from grilse, gillings, or salmon?' but Mr. Pennell asserts that there is no difference whatever-at least up to the period of migration-in fry, bred between salmon. only, between grilse only, between salmon and grilse, between salmon and parr, or between grilse and parr.' A female salmon of thirty-two pounds weight will, according to Mr. Buckland, deposit 30,000 eggs, and a female pike of the same weight, as many as 595,000 (the worst of creatures fastest propagate'?); of these eggs only a proportion are vivified, and the risks between impregnation and the birth of the fish, from floods and ravenous foes, are many. But, under favourable conditions as to warmth and quiet, at a period varying from 90 to 140 days, the eggs are split by the little struggling creatures inside, and the fish emerges with the yolk of the egg * Yarrell quotes the opposite view, that a pair of salmon are sure to make a furrow.' still attached to its stomach, and forming a supply of food for its earliest eays. Mr. Pennell estimates the continuance of the yolk-bag at from 35 to 40 days. But it has been proved that in many rivers, after a much less space of time, the little tadpole-like creature frees itself from its bag, and commences in earnest its unaided struggle for existence. We have no space for any but the briefest remarks upon the diseases of salmon. The most prominent, the fatal 'saprolegnia ferax,' still unhappily abounds in many rivers, and the last Report of the Tweed Commissioners testifies to its continual prevalence in that river, from which, with ifs tributaries, 36,034 diseased fish have been taken in the last five years. Of its causes or the means for its prevention we still know little. From a carefully prepared paper on the Micro-organisms of River-water,' by Dr. W.S. Greenfield, which forms an Appendix to the last volumes of the Scotch Fishery Board, we learn that, as regards the presence of bacteria or spores of fungi, the Tweed water is far from satisfactory. For whereas in each gramme of good drinking-water there are not more than 1000 bacteria, in a sample taken in the spring from the Tweed there were 2134 points per gramme. That there is direct relation between the presence of any bacteria in a river and the development of salmon disease, we do not venture to say, but there seems no reason to doubt that 'saprolegnia ferax' is found in the waters of rivers which are apparently free from all contamination. And as yet no satisfactory explanation has been offered for its appearance. In the Annual Report of 1882, Professor Huxley says: What is known of the "salmon disease" brings out the curious fact that the epidemic, starting apparently from a centre near the Solway, and extending thence to the Scotch rivers both east and west of this point, has spread to nearly all the Welsh rivers on the west coast in pretty regular rotation: while on the east it has spread only slightly, if at all, south of the Tweed.' But he adds the consolatory conclusion, that: Still more remarkable is the fact, that in the rivers in which the disease has been most virulent, the salmon harvest has increased rather than diminished.' The disease is unquestionably an evil for the eradication of which no pains should be spared, and it is to be trusted that the attention of the Scotch Fishery Board will be continued, and that of the new English Fishery Department directed, to its history and behaviour. ART. III.-1. The Poetical Works of Bryant, Whittier, Emerson, 3. The Poets of America. By E. C. Stedman. London, 1885. NATI JATIONAL character is unfairly judged by its least fortunate expression. Conspicuous features rarely indicate the substance, the most blatant voices seldom utter the deepest truths. They may usurp attention by their grotesqueness or their noise; but the nation is most faithful and adequately represented in less obtrusive details. Especially is this the case in America, where democratic institutions encourage misapprehension by giving expression to the largest aggregate of human selfishness. To Englishmen, the special value of American poetry is, that it reflects the inner spirit and progress of the national life, reveals the pure feeling, the high ideals, the culture and refinement of our Transatlantic neighbours, expresses the mind and heart of the country more fitly than irrelevant habits or superficial peculiarities of manners and customs. If any one still believes the Americans to be merely a shrewd, boastful, peering, fluent people, atrophied by the exclusive worship of wealth, let him read their poetry. America herself has been quick to recognize that, as an instrument of progress, national poetry possesses inestimable value. She felt, and wisely felt, that she could not dispense with so powerful an agency to quicken the pulse of patriotism, to kindle energy and awaken hope, to disclose the ennobling ideals that are embodied in worthless forms, to keep sacred the shrine of freedom from the desecration of cant and self-interest. She had faith, and with reason, in the native sense of beauty which underlay her hard and selfish civilization; she knew that— . Underneath A cold outside there burns a secret fire That will find vent, and will not be put out.' She has reared a monument that will outlive the statistics of trade, and recorded in letters of gold the history of her national life. It is not too much to say, that her living poets may fearlessly challenge comparison with those of any other country. In law, history, science, and oratory, America early struck out for herself an original line. But in more immaterial directions her advance was slow and imitative. In other countries poetry came first and utility afterwards; in America, material civilization preceded the epic. Critics were baffled by the anomaly. They applied old rules to new circumstances. They saw that an advanced stage of industrial development had been reached, and demanded original literature from a nation which was yet in the imitative period of mental infancy. Much heartburning might have been saved had criticism proved more elastic. At the present day America can retort the scornful question, Who reads American Books?' with the proud reply The World, New and Old.' No longer inarticulate and struggling to express what lies beneath the surface, she can listen to foreign criticism without the irritation of youth; a great nation, she has ceased to veil her self-distrust under the cloak of self-assertion. He The history of American Poetry may be roughly divided into three periods: first, the colonial period; secondly, the halfcentury which followed the War of Independence; and thirdly, the period from 1830 to the present time. Only those who, like Mr. Stedman, have specially devoted themselves to the subject, could acquire his minute knowledge of the minor poets of this country. Mr. Stedman's volume on the 'Victorian Poets' earned him in England the reputation of a cautious and diligent critic. His estimates were moderate in tone, wellconsidered, and always based on intelligible grounds. indulged in no jargon of technical phraseology, and affected none of the exquisite subtleties of a high-priest of criticism. In his Poets of America' Mr. Stedman displays the same competent skill, honesty of purpose, and painstaking thoroughness of execution; and he adds to these qualities the great advantage of being on his native soil. To the students of American verse his volume is almost indispensable. In particular he throws great light upon the distinctions of provincial types of poetry, as well as upon the jealousies of literary coteries which formerly rendered American criticism so bewildering to foreigners. Every one will not agree with his conclusions; but no one can differ from so well-informed and conscientious a critic without self-distrust. We shall not follow Mr. Stedman into unfamilar by-paths, but shall rather attempt to sum up the general features of the progress of American poetry which is associated in our minds with the names of Bryant, Whittier, Emerson, Longfellow, Poe, Holmes, Lowell, Bret Harte, Cincinnatus Miller, and Walt Whitman. In the colonial period American poetry was necessarily meagre. Every circumstance combined to retard its growth. An old race but a young people, America enjoyed no halcyon days of childhood, no bright romance of youth. She experienced, from the first, only the stern realities of life. She had |