Transcriber’s Note When italics were used in the original book, the corresponding text has been surrounded by _underscores_. Some corrections have been made to the printed text. These are listed in a second transcriber’s note at the end of the text. SALMONIA: OR DAYS OF FLY FISHING. IN A SERIES OF CONVERSATIONS. WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE HABITS OF FISHES BELONGING TO THE GENUS SALMO. BY AN ANGLER. ——“Equidem credo quia sit divinitus illis Ingenium.” FIRST AMERICAN FROM THE SECOND LONDON EDITION. PHILADELPHIA: CAREY AND LEA—CHESNUT STREET. ........ 1832. E. MERRIAM AND CO. PRINTERS, Brookfield, Mass. TO WILLIAM BABINGTON, M.D. F.R.S. THESE CONVERSATIONS ARE DEDICATED, IN REMEMBRANCE OF SOME DELIGHTFUL DAYS PASSED IN HIS SOCIETY, AND IN GRATITUDE FOR AN UNINTERRUPTED FRIENDSHIP OF A QUARTER OF A CENTURY. PREFACE. THESE pages formed the occupation of the Author during some months of severe and dangerous illness, when he was wholly incapable of attending to more useful studies, or of following more serious pursuits. They constituted his amusement in many hours, which otherwise would have been unoccupied and tedious; and they are published in the hope, that they may possess an interest for those persons, who derive pleasure from the simplest and most attainable kind of rural sports, and who practice the art, or patronize the objects of contemplation, of the Philosophical Angler. The conversational manner and discursive style were chosen as best suited to the state of health of the Author, who was incapable of considerable efforts and long-continued attention; and he could not but have in mind a model, which has fully proved the utility and popularity of this method of treating the subject—_The Complete Angler_, by Walton and Cotton.