The Natural
Historian Is Not A Fisherman, Who Prays For Cloudy Days And Good
Luck Merely, But As Fishing Has
Been styled "a contemplative
man's recreation," introducing him profitably to woods and water,
so the fruit of the naturalist's observations
Is not in new
genera or species, but in new contemplations still, and science
is only a more contemplative man's recreation. The seeds of the
life of fishes are everywhere disseminated, whether the winds
waft them, or the waters float them, or the deep earth holds
them; wherever a pond is dug, straightway it is stocked with this
vivacious race. They have a lease of nature, and it is not yet
out. The Chinese are bribed to carry their ova from province to
province in jars or in hollow reeds, or the water-birds to
transport them to the mountain tarns and interior lakes. There
are fishes wherever there is a fluid medium, and even in clouds
and in melted metals we detect their semblance. Think how in
winter you can sink a line down straight in a pasture through
snow and through ice, and pull up a bright, slippery, dumb,
subterranean silver or golden fish! It is curious, also, to
reflect how they make one family, from the largest to the
smallest. The least minnow that lies on the ice as bait for
pickerel, looks like a huge sea-fish cast up on the shore. In
the waters of this town there are about a dozen distinct species,
though the inexperienced would expect many more.
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