insurrection." He appeals to statesmen, financiers, poets, authors, artists, and even to the masters of the world, by quoting anglers from among their own ranks. Ovid, Trajan, Louis le Débonnaire, Boileau, Walter Scott, J. Lafitte, Sir Humphrey Davy, Olivier Goldsmith (how old Noll would have laughed to find himself so styled), Rossini, Tulou, and Habeneck.

Had our author "sweetened his discourse," as gentle Izaak Walton would say, from the pages of "The Compleat Angler," he could not have found much more to say in fewer words. Among the resources at the command of him whom Langbaine delighted to call "the common father of all anglers," were Drayton's Poly-Olbion, Sonnets and Secrets of Angling, Phineas Fletcher's Purple Island and Piscatory Eclogues. M. Guillemard can also discourse in goodly company :

Has it ever happened to you to go by water from Paris to Rouen? a delicious journey, in the course of which the most charming scenes and fresh landscapes develop themselves to your vision, while your mind conjures up, at the sight of the old places that witnessed them, the memory of chivalrous times and of the simple chronicles of the middle ages. At the expiration of nearly the first half of the journey, where the still threatening ruins of the château Gaillard, the remains of the heroic fortress of Roche-Guyon, and the brow of the hill of the two lovers confront you, remark a village built upon the slope of a long range of hills, whose houses are for the most part hewn out of the solid rock, and which is protected by the same hills from "the outrages of the north;" it is Hautile, a little known hamlet, where the author of the "Lutrin" and of the "Art Poétique" used often to pass a few days with his nephew, the illustrious Dongois. Nowhere are the banks of the Seine more graceful or more coquettish. Read, whilst you admire those enchanting banks, the first verses of the poet's sixth epistle. Never was a picture more seductive and more faithful. Do you see that high beach shaded by willows, "which no one planted there?" it is there that the legislator of Parnassus did not disdain to come sometimes and throw in his line; he tells us so himself:

"Quelquefois aux appâts d'un hameçon perfide
J'amorce en badinant le poisson trop avide."

Who knows how many fine verses were inspired by this admirable nature and grateful leisure, which the Pelletiers and the Cotins would have sneered at?

Before starting, however, upon angling trips in France, a word anent "civilised fish." The idea seems strange, but it is no less true. M. Guillemard attests that not only are the fish of Paris difficult to catch, but whether their education is transmitted by sight, hearing, or some unknown sense, certain it is that there exist in the Seine thousands of fish that have never felt the prick of a hook, and that are yet not the less cautious and mistrustful, from herding with those who have. Those who have compared angling as it now is in the Thames, from Windsor downwards to Richmond, with the sport they have had in some remote unfrequented river or lake, will imagine what angling is in the Seine at Paris, with some forty or fifty gamins and blouses ranged in a file along a favourite parapet, angling, squabbling, and, we grieve to say it, sometimes swearing. They are not all gentle brethren of the rod and line. They have not studied Swammerdam or Bacon, or they would have known that fish hear, and, as Izaak Walton said, the use he would make of that knowledge would be, "to advise anglers to be patient and forbear swearing, lest they be heard and catch no fish.”

Do you wish to enjoy at one and the same time the charms of the most picturesque solitude and of an abundant catch of roach? Come with me, and spend a day in that beautiful valley where the Essonne gives movement and life to so many branches of industry. Not many miles from Paris the desert awaits you, the most fishy rivers call you to their banks. Scarcely have you quitted the railway of Corbeil, barely have you passed the wealthy factories of Corbeil and the smiling village of Mennecy, than vast forests of reeds, resembling the pampas or savannahs of America, spread themselves before you. Never did a more abrupt or a more complete contrast separate two worlds that differ so much the one from the other: there all noise and motion, here stillness and silence; but a moment ago the locomotive roared and the great hydraulic wheel set the myriad of iron arms of the machinery at work; now everything is at rest, not a sound is heard, and if, at times, the wind comes to animate the solitude, the vast field of reeds and rushes alone bends and murmurs before its breath. There, at the bottom of the valley, which embraces some twenty miles in length and from two to three in width, and which the Essonne traverses in its peaceful current, time has deposited deep layers of turf, which the industry of man has in part turned to account. Here and there, extensive excavations, produced by the extraction of this valuable combustible, have been filled by the waters of the heavens, and by the infiltration of the river. In these basins, hollowed out by the hand of man, and communicating, by numerous cuts, with the bed of the Essonne, roach abound, and are an easy prey. In the bosom of these solitudes, animated by the flight of numerous birds of passage, embalmed by the fragrance of an aquatic vegetation (mint?), you will appreciate better than elsewhere how seductive is the amusement to which I invite you, sufficiently exciting to leave you little leisure, and yet not so absorbing as to rob you of the pleasures of thought and of the contemplation of nature.

The kind of country here described may be seen as you travel along the railway from Boulogne to Paris, in the valleys of the Canche, Somme, and Oise, but more particularly in that of the Somme; and these great turf-ponds and lagoons abound in other fish besides roach, many of which attain a very large size.

For example, almost wherever you find roach (gardons) there are also dace, bream, perch, pike, and eels. Whilst the roach, however, seldom weigh more than three pounds, bream are often caught in the same ponds of upwards of five pounds in weight. The French consider the bream (brème) when caught in clear running water as affording a delicate viand of excellent flavour. The fish is not esteemed in this country, where little or no attention has been paid to the culinary preparation of freshwater fish, with the exception of salmon-trout and eels. Small bream go largely in the general small fry known as blanchaille, something like our whitebait, under the designation of henriots. French anglers, it is to be observed, fish for bream and roach with gentils (asticots), but they consider that dace prefer the cadis (porte-bois).

An essentially French fish-French in two senses of the word, first, because it is not met with in England; and, secondly, because it is angled for in a fashion seldom practised in this country-is the chevesne or chevenne (Cyprinus jeses of Linn.), also called juène. It is to be observed, that when we give the French names to guide the amateur, on the authority of M. Guillemard, in no country do names of fish vary locally more than in France. It seems as if, while Burgundians, Alsatians, Auvergnats, Gascons, Bretons, Normans, and the various other populations have been merged into Francs, the fish alone have preserved their old names. Those used by M. Guillemard are many of them un

familiar to us, who have fished the great marshes and running streams of Picardy. They are, in fact, best known on the Seine. The chevesne is called in other provinces chaboisseau, garbotteau, têtard, vilain, and still more commonly meûnier, from its frequenting the rapids below mills. This cyprinus, which is a strong and robust fish, frequents clear running streams with a gravelly bottom, and abounds where there are deep back waters, or piles of bridges, or falls, whether natural or artificial. The chief bait used for it by the native untutored rustic is the cockchafer, which is allowed simply to float down on the surface of the stream. When the season of cockchafers is gone by, just as many are killed with a grasshopper, a bluebottle-fly, a cherry, or even a grape, which are allowed to float in a similar manner. This is a system of angling very common in France, and a peasant lad, with a short line and a mere hazel twig for a rod, will in the season of mayflies capture as many trout, by simply letting the fly float down the river, as the most expert amateur well armed with all that modern improvements have encumbered a simple The chevesne is fished for in deep water with worm or gentil, and coagulated blood is said to be a very killing bait.

art.

To turn from large fish (for the chevesne attains considerable dimensions) to small, the French are very partial to gudgeons. It is well known that large and coarse sea fish, such as the conger eel, are cut up into little bits and fried to represent this delicacy when sought for by the epicurean, as he imagines fresh from the running stream at St. Cloud and St. Germain. It is wise, then, to catch one's own gudgeons; and as the French have a proverb which smacks at once of the culinary and piscatorial arts, that "tel qui cherchait une friture a rencontré l'élément d'une matelote," so when an angler goes to fish for gudgeons in rivers frequented by chevesnes that will bite at anything, even at the lead with which you sound the river, or the gudgeon after you have hooked it, it is well to be prepared for larger game. The French angler thinks a great deal of a gudgeon. "Go out a shooting," he says; "kill dozens of sparrows, linnets, or chaffinches, and you will still be bredouille; but a single quail saves you from that humiliating qualification. The gudgeon is, so to say, the quail of anglers; it is small game, it is true, but it is an aquatic game of excellent quality." Gudgeons, it is well known, can be made to assemble in one spot by stirring up the bottom of the stream. Our author recommends the angler to walk into the middle of the river, but not much over the waist, so as to have the free use of the arms, and then to disturb the bottom with the feet while the angling is carried on from above. We should beg to be excused from putting this recommendation into practice.

As with the Thames angler, barbel is considered by the Parisian to constitute the glory of his basket, and the pièce de résistance de toute matelote un peu respectable. It is certainly the only way to eat it, for, although undoubtedly the barbeau, or, as it is more commonly called, barbillon, is a noble and handsome fish, it is very tasteless, and must be baked with veal-stuffing, or stewed in wine, to be made in any way palatable. Fishing for barbel, which can only be done successfully with ground bait, is decidedly one of the least exciting of all descriptions of angling. The lively Frenchman, accordingly, proposes an ingenious modification. It is to take a book in hand and attach a bell to the rod ; the first ring will tell you to lay the book aside, and a continuous ring

will intimate that it is time to pull the barbel from out of the depths of the stream! The French also kill barbel with night-lines baited with old Gruyère cheese, cut into pieces the size of a dice.

The carp is another fish much beloved by the Parisians, who, it is well known, eat more fresh-water fish than they do sea fish—a state of things which may, however, be expected to undergo great changes with the introduction of railroad conveyance from the coast. There are carps in the basins of Fontainebleau that are said to have lived in the time of Louis XIV. No wonder if naturalists are right when they say that the carp lives sometimes for two centuries. The place where they are most fished, near Paris, are the étang of Saclé, near Jouy, and the étang of Trappes, both of which supply water to Versailles. They are also caught in the Marne, weighing upwards of ten pounds. Tench are not so much in esteem. M. Guillemard asserts that in France this fish varies much in colour, and that he has seen it in ponds watered by running streams, more particularly in the Departement de la Creuze, of a light colour, with a silvery and pearly lustre.

The pike, so despised by Ausonius, stands high in favour with M. Guillemard. It is, he tells us, admitted to the best tables, of which it constitutes the chief ornament! Associated with the perch, they have in France a little fish not much larger than a gudgeon, which is called grémille, or perche goujonnière, and which is even more highly esteemed than the gudgeon itself. It is, however, very scarce, having been as yet only found in a few localities, more particularly at the junction of the Eure and the Seine at Pont de l'Arche.

M. Guillemard ranks salmon-trout and a few rarer fish ainong what he calls poissons exceptionels. The French, as a rule, do not practise flyfishing. "Every year," our author remarks, "amateurs, more especially from England, reap abundant harvests from the banks of our flowing streams. It is a curious spectacle, and one very humiliating to our national self-love, to see the looks of stupid wonder with which some contemplate, without being able to understand, by what magic art these honourable gentlemen,' by whipping the air with their long lines, succeed so easily in filling their baskets."

French salmon are said to exhibit a peculiarity that is not observed elsewhere. They ascend from the sea, up the great rivers, to their tributaries, without being seen in the passage. Nay, French salmon are so adventurous that they ascend the rivers till there is no more water; and M. Guillemard assures us that he captured an enormous fish, imprisoned in a little rocky basin, near the sources of the Cure, not far from Vezelay, in Burgundy. Salmon pass by the Seine and the Loire to get to the Yonne or the Allier, yet salmon are not caught at Paris, Nantes, or even Orleans. The first evil is manifestly the greatest. It is an insult to Paris port de mer. M. Guillemard has remained, he tells us, to vindicate the honour of the capital of the civilised world, for hours together on the Pont des Arts, "car, notez que de toute nécessité les saumon passent sous le Pont des Arts, et je déclare que je n'ai jamais aperçu la queue d'un saumon." This settles the question; salmon evidently pass from the sea and the mouths of the great rivers to their smaller tributaries without having, by some mystery or other, to pass the intermediary stages of the journey. M. Guillemard thinks he has solved the mystery. They travel, he says, by night!

A few hundred salmon are caught every year in the Yonne, at Sens, and at Joigny. They are also occasionally caught at the fall at Marly, in the Seine. Higher up they become still more common, and they frequent the Allier in such numbers that there are regular fisheries at Pont du Château and Bec d'Allier. They ascend the Haute Loire nearly up to Puy (2100 feet above the level of the sea), and they get into Switzerland by the Rhine. The waters, however, that are most frequented by salmon are the shorter streams that percolate through Armorica; and the most renowned salmon fishery in France is that which has been established on the Aulne, near Châteaulin, in Finistère. But, as in other countries, the produce of the rivers has been much affected in France by the rapacity of dealers and poachers, and the resources of the angler keep diminishing every

year.

It is a generally admitted rule that wherever you find salmon you also find trout, but the reverse does not hold good, not only in regard to trout but also to salmon-trout. The latter excellent fish abound in the charming river of Vanne, near Sens, where there are no salmon. Trout, again, frequent some rivers and avoid others that are in close proximity, and that for reasons which the microscope or even chemistry has failed to detect, yet which instinct apprises them of at once. Thus the tributaries of the Yonne, the Loire, and the Vanne abound in trout; whilst the Serain, which flows between the two, and at nearly equal distance from either, does not contain one. They do not prosper in navigable rivers, and it is only in the smaller tributaries of the Seine and of the Loire that they abound. Trout-fishing commences on the Seine beyond Troyes, and becomes good at Bar-sur-Seine, improving as the angler proceeds higher up the river. M. Guillemard does not believe that trout can ascend the perpendicular column of a waterfall like a bird, but they can, he asserts from ocular testimony, leap up a cataract by resting their tails on a stone or rocky point; then, taking them in their mouths, and leaving go suddenly, the muscular distension acts like a spring, and throws them upwards to the next landing. Oftentimes they fail, and have to begin over and over again.

The grayling has a pretty name with the French. They call it Pombre.

Effugiens oculos celeri levis umbra natatu,

said Ausonius, and the poetic idea of the old Bordeaux angler, that it flies away like a shadow, seems to have been embodied in the language as the actual name of the fish. It is also called umber in England, where the verse of Decius is generally translated,

The umbra swift, escapes the quickest eye.

The umber, or grayling, is rare in France, frequenting almost solely the lakes and rivers of the Puy-de-Dôme, of the Cantal, and of the Haute Loire; hence it is often more particularly called l'ombre d'Auvergne. The Italians call it temelo, and Eugenio Raimondi says that the most killing bait is neither more nor less than "animaletto cosi infesto all uomo e alla donna”—an idea that quite destroys the poetry associated with this rare and mysterious tenant of mountain streams.

The French rivers are, like ours, frequented by many fish that do not