[110] "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. Second edition.--London, John Murray, 1829." We are told in the preface, that 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;--that they constituted his amusement in many hours, which otherwise would have been unoccupied and tedious;--and that 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 practise the art, or patronise the objects of contemplation, of the philosophical angler. He informs us that 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 adds, that he could not but have in mind a model, which has fully proved the utility and popularity of this method of treating this subject--"The Complete Angler," by Walton and Cotton. The characters chosen to support these conversations, were HALIEUS, who is supposed to be an accomplished fly-fisher--ORNITHER, who is to be regarded as a gentleman generally fond of the sports of the field, though not a finished master of the art of angling--POIETES, who is to be considered as an enthusiastic lover of nature, and partially acquainted with the mysteries of fly-fishing; and PHYSICUS, who is described uninitiated as an angler, but as a person fond of enquiries in natural history and philosophy. Such are the personages by whose aid the machinery is to be worked; but he tells us that they are of course imaginary, though the sentiments attributed to them, the author may sometimes have gained from recollections of real conversations with friends, from whose society much of the happiness of his early life had been derived; and he admits that, in the portrait of the character of HALIEUS, given in the last dialogue, a likeness will not fail to be recognised to that of the character of a most estimable physician, ardently beloved by his friends, and esteemed and venerated by the public. The work is dedicated to Dr. Babington, "in remembrance of some delightful days passed in his society, and in gratitude for an uninterrupted friendship of a quarter of a century." I am informed by Lady Davy, that the engravings of the fish, by which the work is illustrated, are from drawings of his own execution; so that he could not, like old Isaac Walton, "take the liberty to commend the excellent pictures to him that likes not the book, because they concern not himself."