with a dark or claret coloured body, that when it falls on the water has its wings like the great yellow fly, flat on its back. This, or a claret bodied fly, very similar in character, may be likewise found in March or April, on some waters. In this river I have often caught many large trout in April and the beginning of May, with the blue dun, having the yellow body; and in the upper part of the stream below St. Albans, and between that and Watford, I have sometimes, even as early as April, caught fish in good condition; but the true season for the Colne is the season of the May-fly. The same may be said of most of the large English rivers containing large trouts, and abounding in May-fly—such as the Test and the Kennett, the one running by Stockbridge, the other by Hungerford. But in the Wandle, at Carshalton and Beddington, the May-fly is not found; and the little blues are the constant, and, when well imitated, killing flies on this water; to which may be joined a dark alder-fly, and a red evening fly. In the Avon, at Ringwood and Fordingbridge, the May-fly is likewise a killing fly; but as this is a grayling river, the other flies, particularly the grannam and blue and brown, are good in spring, and the alder-fly or pale blue later, and the blue dun in September and October, and even November. In the streams in the mountainous parts of Britain, the spring and autumnal flies are by far the most killing. The Usk was formerly a very productive trout-stream, and the fish being well fed by the worms washed down by the winter floods, were often in good season, cutting red, in March and the beginning of April: and at this season the blues and browns, particularly when the water was a little stained after a small flood, afforded the angler good sport. In Herefordshire and Derbyshire, where trout and grayling are often found together, the same periods are generally best for angling; but in the Dove, Lathkill, and Wye, with the natural May-fly many fish may be taken; and in old times, in peculiarly windy days, or high and troubled water, even the artificial May-fly, according to Cotton, was very killing.

Here we must end, at least for the present; but there is so much anecdotical pleasantry in Salmonia that we might continue our extracts through many columns, and we are persuaded, to the gratification of the majority of our readers. Even when we announced the publication of this work a few weeks since, we were led to anticipate the delight it would afford many of our esteemed correspondents, especially our friend W.H.H., who has "caught about forty trout in two or three hours" in the rocky basins of Pot-beck, &c.[5] Sir Humphry Davy mentions the Wandle in Surrey, as we have quoted; but he does not allude to the trout-fishing in the Mole, in the Vale of Leatherhead in the same county. There are in the course of the work a few expressions which make humanity shudder, and would drive a Pythagorean to madness,[6] notwithstanding the ingenuity with which the author attempts to vindicate his favourite amusement.

SHROPSHIRE AND WELSH GIRLS.

There are few Londoners who in their suburban strolls have failed to notice the scores of female fruit-carriers by whose toil the markets are supplied with some of their choicest delicacies. As an interesting illustration of the meritorious character of these handmaids to luxury, I send you the following extract from Sir Richard Phillips's Walk from London to Kew.

PHILO.

In the strawberry season, hundreds of women are employed to carry that delicate fruit to market on their heads; and their industry in performing this task is as wonderful, as their remuneration is unworthy of the opulent classes who derive enjoyment from their labour. They consist, for the most part, of Shropshire and Welsh girls, who walk to London at this season in droves, to perform this drudgery, just as the Irish peasantry come to assist in the hay and corn harvests. I learnt that these women carry upon their heads baskets of strawberries or raspberries, weighing from forty to fifty pounds, and make two turns in the day, from Isleworth to market, a distance of thirteen miles each way; three turns from Brentford, a distance of nine miles; and four turns from Hammersmith, a distance of six miles. For the most part, they find some conveyance back; but even then these industrious creatures carry loads from twenty-four to thirty miles a-day, besides walking back unladen some part of each turn! Their remuneration for this unparalleled slavery is from 8s. to 9s. per day; each turn from the distance of Isleworth being 4s. or 4s. 6d.; and from that of Hammersmith 2s. or 2s. 3d. Their diet is coarse and simple, their drink, tea and small-beer; costing not above 1s. or 1s. 6d. and their back conveyance about 2s. or 2s. 6d.; so that their net gains are about 5s. per day, which, in the strawberry season, of forty days, amounts to 10l. After this period the same women find employment in gathering and marketing vegetables, at lower wages, for other sixty days, netting about 5l. more. With this poor pittance they return to their native county, and it adds either to their humble comforts, or creates a small dowry towards a rustic establishment for life. Can a more interesting picture be drawn of virtuous exertion? Why have our poets failed to colour and finish it? More virtue never existed in their favourite shepherdesses than in these Welsh and Shropshire girls! For beauty, symmetry, and complexion, they are not inferior to the nymphs of Arcadia, and they far outvie the pallid specimens of Circassia! Their morals too are exemplary; and they often perform this labour to support aged parents, or to keep their own children from the workhouse! In keen suffering, they endure all that the imagination of a poet could desire; they live hard, they sleep on straw in hovels and barns, and they often burst an artery, or drop down dead from the effect of heat and over-exertion! Yet, such is the state of one portion of our female population, at a time when we are calling ourselves the most polished nation on earth.

COLEBROOK-DALE IRON-WORKS—THE REYNOLDS'.

(To the Editor of the Mirror.)

In the interesting extract you have given in your excellent Miscellany (No. 321) from Bakewell's Introduction to Geology, when speaking of the exhausted or impoverished state of the iron-ore and coals in Shropshire, &c., an allusion is made in a note to that truly excellent man, the late Mr. Richard Reynolds, and to the final extinction of the furnaces at Colebrook-Dale, which is not altogether correct.

I beg leave, therefore, to point out the errors to you, and to add a fact or two more relating to that distinguished philanthropist and his family, which, perhaps, will not be unacceptable to many of your readers.

Mr. Reynolds was by no means the original, nor, I believe, ever the sole proprietor, of the iron-works in Colebrook-Dale, as stated by Mr. Bakewell; he derived his right in them from his wife's family the Darbies; and the firm of "Darby and Company" was the well known mark on the iron from these works for a very long period; more recently, that of "Colebrook-Dale Company" was adopted.

The Darbies were an old and respectable family of the Society of Friends, and a pair of the elder branches of it were the original "Darby and Joan," whose names are so well known throughout the whole kingdom. I had this anecdote from one of the sons of Mr. Reynolds,[7] and have no doubt of its authenticity.

It may not be generally known to your readers, perhaps, that the first iron bridge in England was projected at, and cast from, the furnaces of Colebrook-Dale, and erected over the Severn, near that place, about