PHYS.—By creeping on my knees, and dropping my fly over the bank, I hooked a very large fish which I saw rising, and which was like a salmon; but he was too strong for my tackle, ran out all my line, and at last broke off by entangling my link in a post in the river. I have been very unlucky! I am sure that fish was larger than the great one Ornither took with the natural fly. HAL.—Come, you have been initiated, and I see begin to take an interest in the sport, and I do not despair of your becoming a distinguished angler. PHYS.—With time and some patience: but I am sorry I tortured that enormous fish without taking him. HAL.—I dare say he was a large fish; but I have known very correct, and even cool, reasoners in error on a point of this kind. You are acquainted with Chemicus; he is not an ardent fisherman, and certainly not addicted to romance; I will tell you an anecdote respecting him. He accompanied me to this very spot last year, on a visit to our host, and preferred angling for pike to fly fishing. After the amusement of a morning, he brought back with him to the house one pike, and with some degree of disappointment complained that he had hooked another of an enormous size, which carried off his tackle by main force, and which he was sure must have been above 10lbs. At dinner, on the table, there were two pikes; one the fish that Chemicus had caught, and another a little larger, somewhat more than 3lbs. We put some questions as to who had caught this second pike, which we found had been taken by our host, who smiling, and with some kind of mystery, asked Chemicus if he thought it weighed 10lbs. Chemicus refused to acknowledge an identity between such a fish and the monster he had hooked; when my friend took out of his pocket a paper containing some hooks and tackle carefully wrapped up, and asked Chemicus if he had ever seen such an apparatus. Chemicus owned they were the hooks and tackle the great fish had carried away. “And I found them,” said our friend, “in the mouth of that very _little_ fish which you see on the table, and which I caught half an hour ago.” HOST.—I answer for the correctness of this anecdote, but I do not sanction its application to the case of our novitiate in angling. I have seen a fish under that bank where he was so unfortunate, which I am sure was above four pounds, and which I dare say was the subject of his unsuccessful experiment. POIET.—From what our host has just said, I conclude, Halieus, that fish do not usually change their stations.