ANGLING.
The prevailing attributes and domestic economy of fishes may be described as exactly the reverse of those of birds. These gay and airy creatures possess the power of surveying distinctly, at a glance, an immeasurable extent of horizon; their acute perception of sound appreciates all intonations, and their glad voices are exquisitely skilled in their production. Though their bills are hard, and their bodies closely covered by down and feathers, they are by no means deficient in the sense of touch. They enjoy all the delights of conjugal and parental affection, and perform their incumbent duties with devotedness and courage. They cherish and defend their offspring, and will sometimes even die in their defence; and of all the wonderful labors of instinctive art, none is so beautiful as the formation of their mossy dwellings. With what deep and continuous affection does the female brood over her cherished treasures!—how unwearied is the gallant male in his tender assiduities, and with what melodious love does he outpour that rich and varied song by which he seeks to soothe her sedentary task!
“Over his own sweet voice the stock-dove broods!”
But close at hand, on that umbrageous bough, sits the fond partner of his joys and sorrows, so that it is in no spirit of selfish solitary musing that he ever murmurs, by woodland stream and shadow-haunted brook, “a music sweeter than their own.” The slender winged and glossy plumaged swallow, which skims the verdure of the new-mown meadow, or dimples the surface of the breezeless lake—the ponderous but giant-pinioned eagle, winging his way from distant isles, o’er waters glittering with redundant life—the proud, far-sighted falcon, which, launching from some hoar cliff or lightning-scathed peak,
“Doth dally with the wind, and scorn the sun,”—
the wild and fearful lapwing, with graceful crest and dark dilated eye, are each and all enslaved for many a long-enduring season by this love of offspring, and toil in its support from dewy morning until latest eve.
But it is far otherwise with our voiceless dwellers in the deep, who exhibit but few attachments, are conversant with no interchanging language, and cherish no warm affections. Constructing no dwellings, they merely shelter themselves from danger among the cavernous rocks of the ocean, in the silent depths of lakes, or beneath the murky shade of the overhanging banks of rivers; and the cravings of hunger alone seem to exercise a frequent or influential action over their monotonous movements. We must not, however, conceive that the life of fishes is not one of enjoyment, for we know that the Great Creator “careth for all his creatures;” and it ought perhaps rather to be said that we cannot appreciate the nature of their feelings, than that they are in any way fore-doomed to a negation of pleasure. Assuredly, however, the hand of nature has been most prodigal in bestowing on their external aspect every variety of adornment. Their special forms are infinite, their proportions often most elegant, their colors lively and diversified—and nothing seems wanting, either in their shape or structure, to excite the unfeigned admiration of mankind. Indeed, it almost appears as if this prodigality of beauty was intended solely for such an end. The brightness of metallic splendor, the sparkling brilliancy of precious gems, the milder effulgence of the hues of flowers, all combine to signalize fishes as among the most beautiful objects of creation. When newly withdrawn from their native element, or still gliding submerged amid its liquid coolness, their colors, fixed or iridescent, are seen mingling in spots, or bands, or broader flashes—always elegant and symmetrical, sometimes richly contrasted, sometimes gradually softened into each other, and in all cases harmonizing with a chaste fulness of effect which Titian and Rubens might envy, but could never equal. For what reason, then, it has been asked, has all this adornment been bestowed on creatures which can scarcely perceive each other amid the dim perpetual twilight of the deep? Shakspeare has already said that there are “more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy;” and we fear it is no answer to the foregoing question to add, that the same observation applies with even greater truth to the “waters beneath the earth.”