which is to be purchased at all the tackleshops; it consists of a piece of leather twisted up into a substance something resembling the shape of a fish, of about two and a half inches long, laced over with gold, brass, and silver thread or wire, and striped with various colours, the more brilliant the better. The tail is made of one or more pieces of block tin. To the body two or four or more hooks are lashed; attached to the nose of this bait is a swivel, to which the line is fastened, and by giving this bait a bend from head to tail it will spin or turn round as it is drawn through the water; the hooks attached to the devil should be No. 8 or 9. This bait is not of much use in a lake or quiet stream, but is reckoned a killing bait in rough waters. Fly fishing-rods are not made like those for trolling, being much more flexible at the top. The artificial flies used for taking trout are, for April, the thorn, yellow dun, and stone fly; the May fly in May and early part of June; and after that the black ant fly. July brings the wasp fly, August the butterfly, September the badger fly; the gnat is always said, during its season, to be a favourite fly for trout, but the baits of all kinds will in some measure vary in different lakes or streams. Trout is not worth taking when out of season, that is, while spawning and for some time after. There is an old saying, "They come in and go out with the buck." When in perfection their spots are bright, the back is large and thick. The best for the table is the female, which is known by having a lesser head and deeper body. During the winter months the trout is sickly, and is very frequently what is termed lousy; the insects called lice resemble a small worm with large head. When the spring comes on, the trout increases in health and vigour, and visits the clear and gravelly streams, where he constantly rubs against the bottom to rid himself of the vermin bred during his unhealthy season. The most favourable resorts of the trout, and of course the places most likely for the angler to succeed in taking him, are as follow :-In small holes or under stones and clumps in shallow quick streams, always swimming against it; in cold waters; they congregate also in clear and gravelly-bottomed ponds where streams run into them. (To be continued.) Reviews. Peregrine Pultuney; or, Life in India. In 3 vols. Mortimer. LOOKING on the work before us as a novel, it wants plot and incident, and has other deficiencies. The hero is a careless, bold, roystering adventurer, with a taste for banter and waggery. All this is allow able, and still he may be a very good hero, but the author ought not to add unnecessarily to the list of youthful failings. It abates the interest we might otherwise take in Peregrine's fortunes, when he is found too much addicted to tippling, smok ing, swearing, cruel hoaxing, and savage revenge. These things may be in nature, but it is not in nature to love the youth in whom they abound, and therefore it is not to the principal figure in a picture, for whom it is intended our sympathies should be enlisted, that they can judiciously be given. The faults of the imaginary Peregrine we suspect, in some degree, attach to their author. From the careless, frolicsome tone in which he occasionally speaks in his own person, in terms not far removed from what is termed slang, "we calculate," as brother Jonathan would say, it is a young or at all events not a very old soldier that holds the pen, and that he conceives the licence he requires for himself, the writer of a book is bound to concede to his hero. But on reverting to the title-page we have some misgivings. It is not there told that the work before us is a novel. The writer evidently means to take his stand on Life in India,' which he applies himself to paint, and in this he is no doubt entitled to praise. All old East Indians at Cheltenham, all Englishmen in India whose livers are not yet calcined, and all Griffins, old and young, from the sucking Griff, who has just landed, to the expiring Griffin who has been a year and three quarters of a day on shore, and all embryo Griffins at Haileybury and Addiscomb-nay, possibly Griffins unborn, will be likely to pore over these pages with eagerness, and devour their contents with advantage. For the simple English reader it would have been well had the dialogues been shorter and some of the delineations less minute; and we may just hint that a descriptive author need not be as flippant as an auctioneer, and should be careful not to multiply details till they become as dry as a catalogue. Some of the school pranks of the hero are hit off with great spirit, and much power blended with humour is occasionally displayed. Our first quotation is a very clever sketch. It gives Death as well as Life in India. "Did you hear,' asked Mrs Parkinson, with a smile, that Miss Dance is going to be married?' "Miss Dance! only think-dear me!— well- well! wonders will never-and to whom! only think! Miss Dance!' "To Mr Fast, of the Civil Service,' said Mrs Parkinson. "Well-well! only to think; a lakh and a half in debt, I believe-with only a thousand a month. That's a bad match at all events.' "Mrs Poggleton uttered these last words as though there was something eminently refreshing in the thought of Miss Dance's having made a bad match; and it is more than probable that she would have manifested her inward satisfaction still more palpably, if a servant had not entered the room at this juncture, and put a loosely-folded note with a deep black edge to it into Mrs Parkinson's hand. "Bless me!' exclaimed that lady, directly she had perused the contents of it; how shocking, to be sure!' "The note was in fact one of those dreadful undertaker's circulars, which are sent round to the principal houses in Calcutta, almost immediately an inhabitant dies, to inform the friends of the late Mr So-and-so, that his remains will be removed for interment,' from his residence in such and such a place at a certain hour of the same afternoon, and which frequently are the first announcements you receive of the death of some neighbour or acquaintance. "Who's dead now, pray?' asked Mrs Poggleton, who was too well used to the sight of these billets not to know their full meaning at a glance; who's dead now, Mrs Parkinson?' "Mr Collingwood,' returned Mrs Parkinson; it really is quite shocking; he dined with us the day before yesterday cholera, I suppose-dreadful!' and Mrs Parkinson endeavoured to look quite overcome, but was not particularly successful. "But Mrs Poggleton pretended nothing at all: she leant forward, held out her hand for the undertaker's circular, looked rather pleased than otherwise, and said, Dear me! if it is not the gentleman with that pretty carriage, I declare.' "Small use to him a pretty carriage now,' said Mrs Parkinson; the only carriage that he needs is a hearse.' "Oh! but,' exclaimed Mrs Poggleton, with more eagerness than she had manifested throughout the conversation, I have been dying a long time for that carriage, and now I shall be able to get it. What a nice thing to be sure!" " The etiquette of a Calcutta ball-room may be agreeable to many English ladies. It is furnished by a spinster born in India, who has returned to her native land after completing her education in England. "An Indian spinster is an Indian spinster, whatever her position may be. I am used to it now; but when first I came out I was constantly making mistakes; the English licences I took astonished my father and mother, nay, even my very acquaintance. A few nights after I arrived here, I was at a ball at the Town hall, and there was a Mr Darlington there-a civilian-whom I had met very often in England, as he was staying, during Christmas, at my grandmamma Poggleton's, and so of course we got very intimate. He is a very nice man, but I must tell you, Peregrine, that I should as soon think of marrying the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Pope of Rome, as I should him; and whilst he was sitting by me, between the quadrilles, I saw a young ensign of a king's regiment, who had come out in the ship with me, and whom I particularly disliked, making his way towards me to ask, for the third time of asking, whether I was still engaged for so many dances. I was not engaged for more than two, and so seeing my dilemma, I said to Mr Darlington, 'Pray let me say I'm engaged to you for the third,' and will you believe it, he quite stared at me. I asked him what was the matter, and he said he thought he had danced with me once. 'Oh!' said I, somewhat offended, and once is enough-is it?' Upon which he smiled, and said that he supposed I was not yet initiated into the mysteries of Calcutta etiquette; for that no lady ever danced with a gentleman more than once in the course of the evening unless he was going to be married to her. I looked very foolish of course, but never made such a blunder again, and was condemned to dance with the ensign." We now take a peep at a Calcutta furniture shop; Peregrine enters it with his friend Jenks : his own foundation in the South Barracks, "Julian Jenks, who, living as he was on had seen at least twenty times as much of the Indian world as Peregrine had from the perfectly well his way about the bazaar, and fine house in Chowringhee, seemed to know to be acquainted with several of the dealers -as a proof of which he conducted our hero into a furniture-shop, and told him that he articles, and that he could not provide himwould find it necessary to buy several self at a better establishment. he entered a shop in which chairs, tables, "With all my heart,' said Peregrine, as beds, couches, and other articles of upholstery what shall I buy first?' were huddled promiscuously together; ' and head of the establishment, after making a "Master buy plenty things,' returned the profound salaam-master buy three-four hundred rupee things-tousand rupees, master, I sell.' "I have no doubt of it,' observed Peregrine; but first of all, what's the price of this bed?' "Master, I say proper price,' replied the obsequious dealer-very cheap, master, I sell-that bed I say forty rupee." 666 "Very well,' said Peregrine, 'write it down-one bed forty rupee.' "Stop,' interposed Mr Jenks, 'you must not do that, my good fellow. Forty rupees! why I bought the very fellow to it for sixteen rupees the day before yesterday. Oh! you rogue!' 666 Nay, sahib,' remonstrated the baboo, very meekly, 'I not rogue-I say forty rupee. Forty rupee that asking price-master say sixteen-master take-be good to poor man, master; buy plenty things, I sell. Chank, he buy things from me; he know price, but very cheap.' Mr "Yes,' said Julian, and very lucky for my friend that I do know the price. You see, Pultuney, that if you give about the third of what these people ask for their goods, you are pretty sure of giving too much. The "asking price," as this man calls it, is nothing. They never expect to get what they ask, for nobody ever thinks of giving it. Phillimore says, that the only way to annoy one of these men is to give him immediately what he asks, and he will go away cursing his folly for not having asked three times as much.' "Thank you for the information,' returned Peregrine, we do things very differently in England: but now, let me see-I want two tables-six chairs-a pair of couches-a bookcase-a chest of drawers, and a washingstand.' "Yes, master, I show-all things gotsell very cheap-master buy all thing he want.' "Yes,' said Jenks, 'you had better select everything you want, and then buy them all in a heap.' "This was done accordingly; and in half an hour afterwards Peregrine had bought all the things enumerated above, besides a dinner and breakfast set-a great quantity of glasses-a butter-bowl-some dish-covers-a pair of table pedestals (Anglicé, candlesticks) with glass shades-a patent coffee-pot-a dozen table-cloths-a pair of decanters-a great number of dinner-knives (plate he had brought with him)-six dozens of beer, and a box of cheroots-for the whole of which he disbursed about four hundred rupees, and went home well contented with his bargain." We add a very graphic description of the outskirts of Calcutta. "For two or three miles, after passing Chowringhee, where Julian Jenks had picked up his companion, the road seemed to the young gentlemen to lie through a bazaar, as densely populated, though not quite so confined, as that which they had visited a few days before. At first the streets were tolerably broad, and were skirted with houses of considerable dimensions, that had doubtless at one period been vastly comfortable abodes, but which now appeared somewhat out of repair. A great number of these houses were punch-houses or taverns, as was sufficiently indicated by the large staring boards appended to them, or the coloured flags waving over their portals; whilst others were houses of a still worse character, sinks of infamy of the vilest description. Along the streets were to be seen tottering onward, sailors, intoxicated even at that early hour, or unsteady from the last night's debauch-low Portuguese and East Indians, male and female -numberless natives of sorts,' Hindoos, Mahommedans, Chinamen, Arabs, and here and there, though at rare intervals, the flat face of the Mhug. Passing onward, the streets became narrower and the houses at their sides smaller-long rows of native shops now appeared, all open in the front to the street, and displaying their contents, which were for the most part of a scanty and onesorted description, to the view of the passer by. Peregrine could not but admire the way in which they seemed to abstain from infringing on one another's conventional privileges, for there were no miscellaneous stores to be seen. Trade amongst them wore The a multiform aspect, and dispersed itself thinly over a wide surface, for one man had nothing but brass pots in his shops, whilst another had nothing but earthen ones, a third sold turbans and nothing else, a fourth skullcaps, a fifth looking-glasses, and so on. earnings of each man must have been small, but then they all earned something-there were no monopolies amongst them, and they all looked contented, and whether from principle, from prejudice, or from indolence, we know not, but they seemed to respect one another's rights, and without knowing anything about it, to have hit upon the true source of national prosperity. "Mingled with these shops every here and there, a few paces withdrawn from the road, were some spacious but dilapidated edifices, principally of red brick, which, with their to mind an age of by-gone magnificence, when extensive porticoes and lofty columns, called Chowringhee and Garden Reach were not. In front of the shops and by the side of the aqueducts, which in some places ran along the road, were to be seen natives, men, and their long black locks, which, unconfined, women, and children, washing their limbs streamed over their shoulders; sitting on their haunches at the thresholds of their houses were others, submitting to the operations of the barber, or disentangling one another's wet hair, before twisting it up in the seemly knot behind, which gives to men such a womanlike aspect: whilst walking slowly along the street and staring wildly around, were some men, almost naked from painted faces, and their loamed hair, to our head to foot, who, with their smeared and friends, who had never before seen a Sunyasse, looked like denizens of another and a lower sphere, roaming abroad on a terrestrial visit. Altogether the scene was novel and interesting; and in spite of the difficulty of locality, Peregrine Pultuney and Julian Jenks getting along through so densely populated a were really sorry when they found themselves hackeries were almost the only things in their on a clear road, where carhanchies* and way." The Gatherer. ON THE MOAT-DRAINING OPERATION AT THE TOWER. All utilitarians I hate; And really I cannot see why, The Town of Woolwich.-On every side * Native carriages drawn by bullocks. launched from her dockyard on Wednesday. A new circus has lately been opened. With such a temptation-the 'Boscawen' for a star, its arsenal, common, and rich adjacent scenery, it will this Easter have a run upon it such as in former holidays Greenwich only could expect. The Nettle, as a Fodder for Cattle, is much used on the continent, particularly in Holland, where whole fields are cultivated for this purpose; it is cut five or six times a year. In Holland the horse-dealers give the seeds to their horses to make them brisk, and to give them a fine skin; the roots are also extensively used for dying yellow. Nettles either eaten green or dried are considered by the farmers of the continent to promote the fat of horned cattle, as also sheep and pigs, and the seeds, when mixed with oats, are excellent for hardworking horses; it is a good food for poultry.-J. McI., Hillsborough. Dramatic Writers.-The example of the Emperor of Austria, in granting to dramatic authors a per-centage on the receipts on each representation of their works, has been followed by the King of Prussia, who has ordered" that the writers of pieces hereafter performed at the two royal theatres of Berlin shall, according to their length, receive from four to ten per cent. on the gross produce of each representation." This charge is to be continued to the author during his life, and to his family for ten years after his death. Authors may dispose of their rights. Authors of the Day." One great author has a fancy for conjuring tricks, which he performs, in a small circle,' to admiration; another would play at battledore and shuttle-cock till he dropped; another or two (say a dozen) prefer a ballet to any other work of art; one likes to be a tavern-king, and to be placed in the chair;' another prefers to sit on a wooden bench round the fire of a hedge alehouse, and keep all the smockfrocks in a roar ; one poet likes to walk in a high wind and a pelting rain, without his hat, and repeating his verses aloud; another smokes during half the day, and perhaps half the night, with his feet upon the fender, and puffing the cloud up the chimney; another sits rolled up in a bear's-skin, and as soon as he has got 'the idea,' he rushes out to write it down." These, it may be presumed, belong to the Society of "Odd Fellows." The Exhibition at the Louvre.-The catalogue of the Louvre for 1844 contains 2,423 works of art; and the exhibitors are 1,371 in number, of whom 200 are females. The works are thus divided1,808 oil paintings, landscapes, and portraits, 348 miniatures, crayon and watercolour drawings, 133 sculptures, 24 architectural designs, 89 engravings, and 21 lithographs. Amongst the oil paintings and sculptures, 237 are on religious subjects. Atmospheric Railways.-M. Mallet, the celebrated engineer, sent specially by the French government to examine the atmospheric railroad at Kingstown, states, in his report, that by the system all danger from accidents by fire is avoided, and from carriages running off the road almost, and a collision between two trains altogether prevented. It prevents the necessity of levelling the soil according to the present inconvenient method, and offers an economy of 140,000fr. a league, or 2,000l. British per mile. M. Mallet recommends the government to make a trial Cuper's Gardens.-In a song called "The Complaint," written in 1750, this stanza music, the fireworks, and all was so grand, stand: For ever, me thought, I admiring could But now Susan is absent, I cannot forbear, But cry, What ridiculous trifles are here!' Alas! all those rockets sent up to the skies, Are nought to the fireworks play'd from her eyes!" the Strand, descend the stairs to the left Let the reader cross Waterloo bridge from on the Surrey side, and advance nearly a quarter of a mile among the numerous and he will stand on ground forming part of "Cuper's gay groves." small houses behind St John's church, Redmen and Blackmen.-There is something noble and striking in the Indian character irreconcilable though it be with advanced civilization and Christian influences. The Negro, on the contrary, is a domestic animal. The Indian avoids his conqueror; the Negro bows at his feet. The Indian loves the independence and privations of his solitude better than all the flesh-pots of Egypt; the Negro, if left to himself, is helpless and miserable; he must have society and sensual pleawell, to dance, to sing, and to make love, sures; if he be allowed to eat and drink he seems to have no further or higher aspirations, and to care nothing for the degradation of his race. TO CORRESPONDENTS. We shall be glad to see one or two of the articles by "A Tender of Insects." LONDON: Published by JOHN MORTIMER, Adelaide Street, Trafalgar Square; and sold by all Booksellers and Newsmen. Printed by REYNELL and WEIGHT, Little Pulteney street, and at the Royal Polytechnic Institution. unications. TOWER. bjects which the visits the Rhine e Tower. It is a resent its dilapiThough its massy rms, et fuga temattered, its doors, ished. Here Solind brambles and approaches which the swords and t gave this struchas now borne ries-that of the that, in or about and something, a ed here was anned with destrucch was called the hands of Kuno de Falkenstein, and he did what its formidable neighbours had only threatened-fairly put the borough out of existence, and then raised the structure which remains, and which he made much larger than its pugnacious neighbour. It was his humour to honour it with the title of the Mouse, that thenceforth, on that spot, the ordinary course of things might be inverted, as he declared "the mouse should devour the cat." In this he did not deceive himself. "The cat has had her day." She has fallen before the mighty mouse we find nothing of the former but her tale. The mouse in its time must have been of great strength. It is reported to have harboured beings from the other world, some of whom, the peasants in its vicinity believe, still reside in it. This, however, is discredited by a modern traveller. "I wandered," says Victor Hugo (we quote Aird's lively translation), "first in one room, then in another: admiring at |