There is a story told of a Scotch minister on a catechizing raid, after having got the proper answer from a ploughman to a question, "Who made you?" proceeding most unfairly to the further question "How do you know?" Jock grew red in the face, scratched his head, and then rising by an instinctive leap to the height of the argument, replied "It's the common clash o'the kintra." Now this was a sound, if grotesque, answer on the main question of natural theology in which general assent fonnded on instinctive perception is one of the best evidences.

However, it is very satisfactory to see, from the publication of the book styled The Church and the World, or Essays on Questions of the Day, 1865, [First Series,] that there are yet men in the clerical body who can with much spirit and effect defend themselves and their particular order against attacks made on it by some members of the public press.

There is a good deal of likeness in point of obscurity of language and sentiment betwixt Mr. Russel's style and that of Mr. John Ritchie Findlay, one of the proprietors of the Scotsman, who some time ago wrote an article on Thomas De Quincey in the new edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, part of which is expressed in the following words :—“ His sensitive disposition dictated the ignoring of traits merely personal to himself, as well as ever recurrent resort to opium as a door-way of escape from present ills, and prompted. these habits of seclusion, and that apparently capricious abstraction of himself from society-not only of his friends, but of his own family—in which he from time to time persisted." An American, having read Mr. Findlay's article, wrote to a Scotch casual acquaintance that "not one of Mr. Findlay's

facts is correct." He, however, paid that gentleman the compliment of styling the passage above quoted a specimen of clear analysis and elegant English.

Courant, Monday, 20th May, 1878.)

(See Edinburgh

But does the condemnation by this American citizen, of the carelessness of writers of articles in the Encyclopædia Britannica, stand alone? It does not. Let any person turn to Mr. Mc.Leod's Book on Banking, vol. 1, p. 299, and he will find stronger language still against negligent information finding a place in a work once of so high repute. Mr. Mc.Leod quotes first the words of a writer on " Credit," and then he remarks thereon, "When we see such gross, dense, crassa ignorantia in a publication of the character and pretensions of the Encyclopædia Britannica, what are we to expect from the general public?"

It would further appear, from Mr. Russel's work, that Parliamentary Committees have been the repositories of very questionable information about salmon. "The nonsense about the salmon that has been published under the name of natural history, and thrust down the throats of Parliamentary Committees, is, when looked back upon, appalling in amount, variety, and worthlessness." (page 32). These learned bodies must feel highly delighted with such a complimentary notice of their powers of discrimination, and will feel disposed hereafter to take their abode in the "subaqueous residence "adverted to by Mr. Russel; or they may think that Mr. Russel should have remembered the weighty words of as an acute controversialist as ever lived,—" There being no more certain sign that a point is not evident, than that honest and understanding men, and such as give themselves liberty of judgment after a mature consideration of the

matter, differ about it" (Chillingworth's works, vol. 1, p. 82-Oxford edition). If they adopt Chillingworth's sentiments, they will have none of Mr. Russel's " visionary theories," "narrow empiricism," "stiff assertions," "easy credulity," and "obstinate unbelief" (page 32). When they take up their abode in the "subaqueous residence," they will, probably, be only stiff in their bodies, and watery in their theories. Then will be the time for Mr. Russel to throw down the gauntlet, in feudal style, and exclaim, "We defy any man to find a parr in a river to which salmon have not access, or a salmon in a river where there are no parrs (p. 38). He will have the field to himself, and sing merrily, "where there are no salmon there are no parr, and rice versa (p. 38); and," where there are no salmon there are no grilse, and where there are salmon there are grilse, and vice versa." Mr. Shaw of Drumlanrig and he will dance the reel of Tullouchgorum to their own music, and the one-year and two-year theories of migration will be buried in oblivion, unless, indeed, Mr. Mackenzie, the "Ross-shire laird," in pure vexation "seeks to gain an undying, if undesirable reputation by setting fire to the Tay, the Tweed, and all other salmon rivers" (p. 59), and so spoiling the pleasure of so favourite a dance, which would be a very naughty act on his part. It would bring up the dancers “with a jerk ” (p. 58). In the event of such a frightful catastrophe, the salmon proprietors would stand no chance of making profits such as those described in these words of Mr. Russel-“ The larger section of the proprietors and their lessees have been, or at least were until the recent legislation, going on competing with each other who should kill most and spare least, careless of the future." As little need would there be for the

"useful little bill" of 1863 (26 Vict., cap, 10), prohibiting the exportation of salmon at certain times," because, when all the rivers were on fire, there would be nothing but broiled fish-not exportable. The salmon have a severe time of it, for "it appears from the returns, that, measured by value, just about as much salmon was wont to be exported during the illegal as during the legal season; and as the value of foul fish as compared with clean is seldom more than onefifth, it would appear that by far the greater part of the salmon consisted of fish taken in the breeding season, and in the most unwholesome condition, besides having been stolen from the fishery owners, and in violation of laws designed to preserve from extinction a valuable article of food" (p. 177). This extract is no subject of merriment. The proceeding described is much to be deplored. It proves beyond cavil that vulgar, uneducated and desperate poachers, or idle vagrant poor, are not the only illegal destroyers of fish, but that there are men of place and quality so engaged in the work of destruction. It will not do, however, because one act of illegality is committed, or many acts of that sort, by private people, for the Crown rights to be so used as to exterminate these evil-doers by other acts on the part of the Crown of equal destructiveness, which appears to be the substance of Mr. Russel's book at pp. 197, 198, 199, 200, and 201. Here it is pertinent enough to ask,-Is Mr. Russel a disinterested party in the parr and salmon controversy ? Judging from what follows, one would say not. The Saturday Review has a notice of Mr. Russel's book, which, inter alia, has these words,-" He is a veteran writer, the editor of the Scotsman, a veteran angler, and is believed to have had a leading share, in company with the Duke of

Roxburghe and the present Lord Advocate, in the recent amendment of the Scottish fishing laws."

The 2nd chapter of Mr. Russel's book ends with a passage which it is highly necessary to attend, because it shows the danger of putting indiscriminately the names of fish into statutes in a hasty manner:-"It will be understood that all or most of all that has been said here has reference only to the salmo salar, or true salmon. Beyond that, in the questions about 'fish of the salmon kind,'—salmo eriox, salmo trutta, salmo albus, &c. &c.,-lies a vast field, almost pathless, and thickly covered with an underwood of doubt and confusion. There are, perhaps, half a dozen species or varieties, all of more or less different habits, and almost all having different names in different localities; besides which, the same name is often applied to different species; and the young and the adult are sometimes classed as two species, sometimes vice versa." Mr. Russel does not pretend to know where the salmon migrate to, but his friend Mr. Buist does know, and he enlightened the public, in the year 1866, by publishing The Stormontfield Piscicultural Experiments, wherein he says it is not thought that the salmon's habitation in the sea is far away. "From certain glimpses which I have obtained, they (i.e., the Tay fish) probably go no farther than Lunan Bay, near Montrose, where I have received from strangers (who did not give their names, but who appeared to be connected with the fishings there) specimens of our marked smolts growing into grilses." From this the inference might be drawn, that armies of thousands and tens of thousands of salmon rendezvous in Lunan Bay, where they throw up with their snouts fortifications similar to the famous lines of Torres Vedras, to protect themselves from their marine foes.