THE DINNER.
Hal.—Now take your places. What think you of our fish?
Phys.—I never ate better; but I want the Harvey or Reading sauce.
Hal.—Pray let me intreat you to use no other sauce than the water in which he was boiled. I assure you this is the true Epicurean way of eating fresh salmon: and for the trout, use only a little vinegar and mustard,—a sauce à la Tartare, without the onions.
Poiet.—Well, nothing can be better; and I do not think fresh net-caught fish can be superior to these.
Hal.—And these snipes are excellent. Either my journey has given me an appetite, or I think they are the best I ever tasted.
Orn.—They are good, but I have tasted better.
Hal.—Where?
Orn.—On the continent; where the common snipe, that rests during its migration from the north to the south in the marshes of Italy and Carniola, and the double or solitary snipe, become so fat, as to resemble that bird, which was formerly fattened in Lincolnshire, the ruff; and they have, I think, a better flavour from being fed on their natural food.
Hal.—At what time have you eaten them?
Orn.—I have eaten them both in spring and autumn; but the autumnal birds are the best, and are like the ortolan of Italy.
Hal.—Where does the double snipe winter?
Orn.—I believe in Africa and Asia Minor. They are rarely seen in England, except driven by an east wind in the spring, or a strong north wind in the autumn. Their natural progress is to and from Finland and Siberia, through the continent of Europe, to and from the east and south.[[5]] In autumn they pass more east, both because they are aided by west winds, and because the marshes in the east of Europe are wetter in that season; and in spring they return, but the larger proportion through Italy, where they are carried by the Sirocco, and which at that time is extremely wet. Come, let us have another bottle of claret: a pint per man is not too much after such a day’s fatigue.
Hal.—You have made me president for these four days, and I forbid it. A half pint of wine for young men in perfect health is enough, and you will be able to take your exercise better, and feel better for this abstinence. How few people calculate upon the effects of constantly renewed fever, in our luxurious system of living in England! The heart is made to act too powerfully, the blood is thrown upon the nobler parts, and, with the system of wading adopted by some sportsmen, whether in shooting or fishing, is delivered either to the hemorrhoidal veins, or, what is worse, to the head. I have known several free livers, who have terminated their lives by apoplexy, or have been rendered miserable by palsy, in consequence of the joint effects of cold feet and too stimulating a diet; that is to say, as much animal food as they could eat, with a pint or perhaps a bottle of wine per day. Be guided by me, my friends, and neither drink nor wade. I know there are old men who have done both, and have enjoyed perfect health; but these are devil’s decoys to the unwary, and ten suffer for one that escapes. I could quote to you an instance from this very county, in one of the strongest men I have ever known. He was not intemperate, but he lived luxuriously, and waded as a salmon fisher for many years in this very river; but before he was fifty, palsy deprived him of the use of his limbs, and he is still a living example of the danger of the system which you are ambitious of adopting.
Orn.—Well, I give up the wine, but I intend to wade in Hancock’s boots to-morrow.
Hal.—Wear them, but do not wade in them. The feet must become cold in a stream of water constantly passing over the caoutchouc and leather, notwithstanding the thick stockings. They are good for keeping the feet warm, and I think where there is exercise, as in snipe shooting, they may be used without any bad effects. But I advise no one to stand still (which an angler must do sometimes) in the water, even with these ingenious water-proof inventions. All anglers should remember old Boerhaave’s maxims of health, and act upon them: “Keep the feet warm, the head cool, and the body open.”
Phys.—I am sorry we did not examine more minutely the weight and size of the fish we caught, and compare the anatomy of the salmon and the sea trout; but we were in too great a hurry to see them on the table, and our philosophy yielded to our hunger.
Hal.—We shall have plenty of opportunities for this examination; and we can now walk down to the fishing-house and see probably half a hundred fish of different sizes, that have been taken in the cruives, this evening, and examine them at our leisure.
All.—Let us go!
Phys.—I never saw so many fish of this kind before; and I conclude that heap of smaller fish is composed of trout.
Hal.—Certainly. Let us compare one of the largest trout with a salmon. I have selected two fresh run fish, which, from their curved lower jaws, are, I conclude, both males. The salmon you see is broader, has a tail rather more forked, and the teeth in proportion are rather smaller. The trout, likewise, has larger and more black brown spots on the body; and the head of the trout is a little larger in proportion. The salmon has 14 spines in the pectoral fins, 10 in each of the ventral, 13 in the anal, 21 in the caudal, and 15 in the dorsal. The salmon measures 38½ inches in length and 21 inches in girth, and his weight, as you see, is 22¼lbs. The trout has one spine less in the pectoral, and two less in the anal fin, and measures 30¼ inches in length, and 16 inches in girth, and his weight is 11lbs. We will now open them. The stomach of the salmon, you perceive, contains nothing but a little yellow fluid, and, though the salmon is twice as large, does not exceed much in size that of the trout. The stomach of the trout, unlike that of the salmon, will be found full of food: we will open it. See, there are half digested sand eels which come out of it.
Phys.—But surely the stomachs of salmon must sometimes, when opened, contain food?
Hal.—I have opened ten or twelve, and never found any thing in their stomachs but tape-worms, bred there, and some yellow fluid; but, I believe, this is generally owing to their being caught at the time of migration, when they are travelling from the sea upwards, and do not willingly load themselves with food. Their digestion appears to be very quick, and their habits seem to show, that after having taken a bait in the river they do not usually seek another, till the work of digestion is nearly performed: but when they are taken at sea, and in rivers in the winter, food, I am told, is sometimes found in their stomachs. The sea trout is a much more voracious fish, and, like the land trout, is not willingly found with an empty stomach.
Phys.—I presume the sea trout is the fish called by Linnæus, in his Fauna, Salmo Eriox?
Hal.—I know not: but I should rather think that fish a variety of the common salmon.
Phys.—But there are surely other species of salmon, that live in the sea and come into our rivers: I have heard of fish called grays, bull trout, scurfs, morts, peales, and whitlings.
Hal.—I have never been able to identify more than the salmo salar, or salmon, and salmo trutta, or sea trout, in the rivers of Britain and Ireland. The whitlings I believe to be the young of the sea trout. A sea trout which I saw in Ireland, called a bull trout, was of the same kind as these you see here, but fresh water trout are sometimes carried in floods to the sea, and come back larger and altered in colour and form, and are then mistaken for new species: and as each river possesses a peculiar variety belonging to it, this, with differences depending upon food and size, will, I think, account for the peculiarities of particular fish, without the necessity of supposing them distinct species. I remember many years ago, the first time I ever fished for salmon in spring in the Tweed, I caught with the fly, one fine morning in March, two fish nearly of the same length: one was a male of the last season, that had lost its melt; the other a female fresh from the sea. They were so unlike, that they did not appear of the same species: the spent or kipper salmon was long and lean, showing an immense head, spotted all over with black and brown spots, and the belly almost black; the other bright and silvery, without spots, and the head small. Even the pectoral and anal fins had more spines in the newly run fish, some of the smaller ones having been probably rubbed off in spawning by the other. I would not for some time, till assured by an experienced fisherman, believe, that the spent fish was a salmon; and when their flesh was compared on the table, one was white, flabby, and bad, and without curd; the other of the brightest pink, and full of dense curd. Then, though of the same length, one weighed only 4lbs., the other 9½lbs. When it is recollected, that different salmon and sea trout spawn at different times in the same river, and that fish of the same year, being born at different seasons, from Christmas to Lady-day,—and having migrated to the sea in spring—run up the rivers of all sizes in summer and autumn—the young salmon from 2 to 10lbs. in weight, the young sea trout from ½ to 3lbs. in weight—it is not difficult to account for the variety of names given by casual observers to individuals of these two species. But I must not forget my promise of sending a fish to the Highlander, with whose sport we have interfered. There is a good salmon, which shall be taken to him immediately, and for which I shall pay the taxman his usual price of 5d. per pound.