Page:Story of the robins.djvu/170

154 "Have you any fish here?" said Frederick. "I believe none of any consequence," replied Mrs. Wilson; "the ducks and the geese would take care that none should grow to any considerable size. But there are plenty in a pond which you will see in the next field, and I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you, at dinner, eat of some perch which were caught there. Sometimes we catch fine carp and tench, but only with nets; for neither my good man nor I can bear the cruel diversion of angling, nor do we allow our children to follow it, from a notion that it hardens the heart and leads to idleness.

"Pray, mamma," said Harriet, "is it right to catch fish? I should think, as they live in water, and we upon land, we have no business with them." "You would wish every one, then, my dear, to keep to their own element? Your sentiment is a good one in many respects, but it must not be extended so far as to forbid the catching of fish. Man has dominion over the fish, as well as over beasts and fowls, and many of them are proper food for mankind, and the astonishing increase of them shows that they are designed to be so; for were all that are spawned to grow to full size, there would soon be more than our ponds, or even than the sea itself, could hold, and they would be starved: therefore there are the same