This is remarkable, for one would suppose that the instinct which directs them in summer, would equally operate in spring; nor is it that they grow wiser or more wary from experience and age, for the old fish which has grown weighty and huge by returning regularly, year after year, to his accustomed haunts, and even to his favourite hole, will forget in spring, the tricks he uniformly practises in summer; he will not rush at once to the nearest rock, and smash your line, but forgetting these tactics of the year gone bye, will play honestly and stoutly in fair water; so that unless your fishing stand be embarrassed with rocks, you need not be apprehensive; your fish will not go out of his way to seek them, but if he finds them in his way, why, small blame to him if he takes advantage of them, to come to an open rupture with you on the occasion. After casting the inside and part of the outer throw, and then dragging the rest of Murreagh, we came ashore, having added to our locker, a slat as red as a copper Indian, two white fish of 14 and 18lbs., and an ugly thief of a pike, that murdered my best goldfinch, and repaid me neither in pot nor sport for the damage he had done. A good day's work-five spring salmon and minor casualties of hooking others and killing slats!-This I admit to be above the daily average, but I selected a good specimen to show what sport (in a small compass) the Shannon is still in the habit of affording. I likewise selected the limited waters of Hermitage, in preference to the greater extent of the Doonass fishery, as they enabled me to comprise, in a shorter space, the details of a complete day's fishing, and to give, from a small sample, a just and creditable notion of "Spring Fishing at Castle Connel." AN OLD GAFFER.

WILD TURKEY SHOOTING.*

BY THE AUTHOR OF "TOM OWEN, THE BEE HUNTER."

THE discovery of America by Columbus, resulted, among other great events, in the addition of the Turkey to the table of the poor man and the epicure, and in adding to the list of game the most remarkable bird that presents itself to the notice of the sportsman. The wild turkey stands entirely alone, altogether unrivalled, and is unquestionably more American than anything else of which we can boast. The Americans are charged with being rather complacent when they touch upon their peculiar advantages, and are apt to claim the honour of being a little the tallest young people that ever breathed. They do believe, we have no doubt, that they have rivers the longest, mountains that stick up the highest, valleys that squat the lowest, horses that run the fastest, politicians that talk the loudest, and girls that are the prettiest

* From the New York Spirit of the Times.

of all in creation. But the Englishman, Frenchman, or any other European, have all these things in kind, and they will vaunt about the Thames, the Seine, and the like, and thereby grow very selfconceited and satisfied; but they knock under when you mention the wild turkey, and willingly admit that America is a great country; indeed, Franklin knew all this, and with a wisdom that eclipsed himself, wished to have this bird of birds introduced upon our national emblem, instead of the eagle. The idea was enough to have immortalized him if he had not been a philosopher, or a modern Ajax, defying the lightning.

The eagle, after all, is no great shakes of a bird, if we look into Audubon for its history, being own cousin to the turkey buzzard, and the most respectable of the family are fish thieves, and the like. Besides, an eagle is no more peculiar to America than rats and mice are, it being common to all countries, and anything but a democratic bird to boot. Cæsar enslaved the world with his eagle banners borne in front of him; Russia, Prussia, and Austria all exalt the eagle as the ensign of royalty, and we think that a bird thus favoured by emperors and autocrats ought to be very little respected by the sovereign-people-democrats. So Franklin thought, and so we think, and we shall always go for the Turkey as the most appropriate national emblem of our country, even if we can have no other stripes associated with it than those given by a gridiron.

The turkey, in its domesticated state, though he may be, and is the pride of the festival dinner and the farm-yard, gives but an indifferent idea of the same bird when wild, both as regards its appearance and flavour. To see the bird in all his beauty, he must be visited in the wild regions of the South and West; there, free and unconstrained, he grows up in all the perfection of his nature, with a head as finely formed as the game-cock's, and elevated, when walking, perpendicularly with his feet; much larger in the body than the tame Turkey * possessed of a never-varying plumage of brownish black, that glistens in the sun like bronze he presents at the same time the ne plus ultra of birds for beauty and for game, ranking with the Indian and buffaloe as one of the three most remarkable living productions of the western world. The haunts, too, of the wild turkey are in harmony with the same character as the Aborigines and the buffaloe. In the deep recesses of

The writer of this article was told by a naturalist recently from the Columbia river, that the wild turkey had been shot in that region, weighing over twenty-eight pounds, We have now the tail of a wild turkey in our possession, which is used as a fan, measuring over twenty inches in width, being stretched only to its natural dimensions; they are frequently much larger. The magnitude of this tail, compared with the common farm-yard turkey, will give some idea of the difference in the size of the wild and the tame birds.

the primitive forest, on the shores of our mightiest rivers, or buried in the midst of our vast prairies of the West only, is the turkey to be found. In these solitudes the turkey rears its young, finding in the spontaneous productions of the soil a never-failing supply of food, and always occupying the same section of country in which they are found; their disappearance from their peculiar haunts is indicative of total extinction. Thus it is that their numbers are irreparably lessened yearly by the sturdy arm of the pioneer and the hunter, and comparatively few years more are required to give a traditionary character only to the existence of the wild turkey upon the borders of our very frontier settlements. At present the traveller in the far west, while wending his solitary way through the trackless forests, sometimes very unexpectedly meets a drove of turkeys in his route, and when his imagination suddenly warms with the thought that he is near the poultry yard of some hearty backwoodsman, and while his wearied limbs seem to labour with extra pain as he thinks of the couch, compared with the cold ground as a resting place, he hears a whizzing in the air, a confused noise, and his prospects of civilization and comfort vanish as the wild turkey disappears, telling him the painful truth, that he meets with these birds to him so familiar in a wild state, because he is far from the haunts of men and his home. Skilful indeed is the shot that stops the turkey in his flight of alarm, and yet the wing is little used by the bird; like the quail, and the partridge, he depends upon running more, and their speed is wonderful, and we doubt if the hounds could match them in a race, even if their wings were clipped, and they could not resort to heights to elude their pursuers. So little indeed does the wild turkey depend on the wing, that they find it difficult to cross rivers moderately wide, and the weakest of the birds are often sacrificed in the attempt. We have seen the wild turkey gathering upon some tall cotton wood on the Mississippi, and we have known by their preparations that they intended to cross the river! after mounting the highest tree they could find on the banks of the river, and stretching out their necks once or twice as if for a long breath, they would start for the nearest point on the opposite side of the stream, descending constantly until they reached it, and frequently very many would find their strength overtasked and would light in the water and be drowned. The Squatter on the banks of the Mississipi often notices these gatherings, and makes preparations to meet the bird with a warm reception, and often with a club and a canoe, he supplies himself with a quantity and quality of game that royalty cannot command, and from the hardy health he acquires by wood-chopping and exposure to the air, he eats the bird with a relish, and digests it with an ease which, the luxurious resident of a city life could realize, he would consider a ch reward for the backwoodsman's privations and toils.