Salmonia: Or: Days of Fly Fishing. In a Series of Conversations; with Some Account of the Habits of Fishes Belonging to the Genus Salmo

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Carey and Lea, 1832 - 312 pages

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Page 186 - Can you explain this omen ? Phys. — A rainbow can only occur when the clouds, containing or depositing the rain are opposite to the hun, and in the evening the rainbow is in the east and in the morning in the west ; and as our heavy rains, in this climate, are usually brought by the westerly wind, a rainbow in the west...
Page 21 - ... who, alarmed at your approach, rapidly hide themselves beneath the flowers and leaves of the water-lily ; — and as the season advances, to find all these objects changed for others of the same kind, but better and brighter, till the swallow and the trout contend as it were for the gaudy May-fly, and...
Page 186 - I have observed generally a coppery or yellow sunset to foretel rain ; but, as an indication of wet weather approaching, nothing is more certain than a halo round the moon, which is produced by the precipitated water ; and the larger the circle, the nearer the clouds, and, consequently, the more ready to fall. Hal. I have often observed that the old proverb is correct — A rainbow in the morning is the shepherd's warning : A rainbow at night is the shepherd's delight.
Page 97 - He is the glad prophet of the year — the harbinger of the best season : he lives a life of enjoyment amongst the loveliest forms of nature : winter is unknown to him ; and he leaves the green meadows of England in autumn, for the myrtle and orange groves of Italy, and for the palms of Africa...
Page 188 - ... driven out of the ground by severe floods ; and the fish, on which they prey in fine weather in the sea, leave the surface and go deeper in storms. The search after food, as we agreed on a former occasion, is the principal cause why animals change their places.
Page 20 - ... of the bank perfumed by the violet, and enamelled, as it were, with the primrose and the daisy; to wander upon the fresh turf below the shade of trees, whose bright blossoms are filled with the music of the bee; and on the surface of the waters to view the gaudy flies sparkling like animated gems in the sunbeams, whilst the bright and beautiful trout is watching them from below...
Page 29 - ... deep, cool, and unimpassioned mind is freed from its fever, its troubles, bubbles, noise and foam. And, above all, the sources of a river — which may be considered as belonging to the atmosphere — and its termination in the ocean may be regarded as imaging the divine origin of the human mind, and its being ultimately returned to, and lost in, the Infinite and Eternal Intelligence from which it originally sprung.
Page 103 - They began by rising from the top of a mountain in the eye of the sun, (it was about mid-day, and bright for this climate.) They at first made small circles, and the young birds imitated them ; they paused on their wings, waiting till they had made their first flight, and then took a second and larger gyration, — always rising towards the sun, and enlarging their circle of flight so as to make a gradually extending spiral. The young ones still slowly followed, apparently flying better as they mounted...
Page 31 - I may almost say, a pastoral scene. The meadows have the verdure which even the Londoners enjoy as a peculiar feature of the English landscape. The river is clear, and has all the beauties of a trout stream of the larger size, — there rapid, and here still, — and there tumbling in foam and fury over abrupt dams upon clean gravel, as if pursuing a natural course. And that island, with its poplars and willows, and the flies making it their summer paradise, and its little...
Page 111 - I daresay has the mean temperature of the atmosphere in this climate, and is much under 50° — place him there, and let him remain for ten minutes, and then carry him to the pot, and let the water and salt boil furiously before you put in a slice, and give time to the water to recover its heat before you throw in another, and so with the whole fish, and leave the head out, and throw in the thickest pieces first PHYS.

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