THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 SKETCHES OF BRITISH SPORTING FISHES
 
 ;r .-_;* tjMSB, U" .
 
 SKETCHES 
 
 OF 
 
 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN WATSON, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "SYLVAN FOLK," "A YBAR IN THE FIELDS," ETC., ETC. 
 
 LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL 
 
 LIMITED. 
 
 1890 
 
 [All rights reserved.}
 
 CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, 
 CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.
 
 ZH 
 
 $ IBeUtcat* 
 
 THIS LITTLE VOLUME 
 
 TO 
 
 E. W., E. L. H., AND B. H., 
 
 IN COMMEMORATION OF A GLORIOUS DAY'S FISHING 
 
 IN 
 
 AN OLD SLIMY PUNT. 
 
 908673
 
 PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 THE contents of the following pages have no 
 pretension to be more than the slightest possible 
 sketches. The subject-matter has, for the most 
 part, been gleaned directly from the waterside, 
 and should be looked upon more as the notes 
 of a naturalist than the jottings of an angler. 
 The paper on Grayling was kindly contributed 
 by a friend, who loves this plucky sporting fish 
 as the Norman William is said to have loved 
 the wild red deer. 
 
 J. W.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 SALMON 
 
 I. 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 TROUT . 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 GRAYLING 
 
 21 
 
 IV. 
 
 PIKE . 
 
 28 
 
 V. 
 
 PERCH .
 
 CONTENTS. 
 VI. 
 
 ROACH AND RUDD 
 
 VII. 
 
 CARP AND BREAM . . . . . . -Si 
 
 VIII. 
 BARBEL, DACE, AND GUDGEON ..... 63 
 
 IX. 
 
 CONCERNING SMALL FRY 1 7! 
 
 X. 
 
 CONCERNING SMALL FRY II. 83 
 
 XL 
 
 ONCE SILVER STREAMS . 
 
 93 
 
 XII. 
 FISH STEWS I00
 
 CONTENTS. xi 
 
 XIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE DEPOPULATION AND RESTOCKING OF TROUT-STREAMS 107 
 
 XIV. 
 WATER POACHERS 117 
 
 XV. 
 THE FISH-POACHER 123 
 
 XVI. 
 EPHEMERAE 130 
 
 XVII. 
 A KING AMONG ANGLERS 135
 
 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 I. 
 
 SALMON. 
 
 WITH all our practical and scientific means of in- 
 vestigation, it is strange how much remains to be 
 known about the salmon. There are certain phases 
 of its life-history which are as yet a mystery, and 
 which the closest scrutiny has not enabled us to 
 unravel. Its food, its migrations, its spawning, 
 its very appearance vary in different rivers, though 
 peculiar local conditions doubtless account for 
 much of the confusion which now exists. There 
 is one fact in connection with the species which 
 is placed outside the range of controversy, and 
 which ought to prove valuable in the future. 
 It is now definitely known that in the great 
 majority of cases salmon return to spawn in the 
 river where they were bred. What it is that 
 enables a fresh-run fish to do this is not clearly 
 known, though Buckland in his life was strongly 
 
 B
 
 2 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 of the opinion that the chief sense employed was 
 that of smell. This, however, is immaterial, 
 though it is an important fact that the salmon 
 returns to its old haunts. 
 
 This aristocrat of the waters is essentially a 
 sea-fish ; and at whatever season it may enter a 
 river, the act is closely connected with the repro- 
 duction of its kind. Salmon begin to " run " in 
 English rivers from May to December, though 
 the autumn months mark the time of the heaviest 
 migrations. The ascent of the rivers is not rapid. 
 Even if these be bank-full and the usual obstruc- 
 tions passable, the fish do not hurry, but love to 
 examine the ground as they go. 
 
 There is a deafening roar from the water, and 
 the impalpable spray constitutes a constant maze 
 of translucent vapour. Ever and anon a big fish 
 throws its silvery form many feet above the water, 
 endeavouring to clear the obstacle. Many times 
 it is beaten back, but at last gains a ledge, and by 
 a concentrated effort manages to throw itself into 
 the still, deep water beyond. Instead of leaping, 
 the female fish try to run through the foam, and 
 on from stone to stone, until a last leap takes 
 them over. In the absence of salmon-passes, 
 many of the fish are picked from the rocks dead, 
 and the majority of these prove to be males. 
 This preponderance is also noticeable on the
 
 SALMON. 3 
 
 spawning-beds, though why it should be so is 
 not definitely known. The " redds " are selected 
 where the river is clearest and purest where 
 there is bright gravel and an absence of sedi- 
 ment. As the she-fish settles to spawning, she 
 scoops out a hole in the sheltering gravel, and is 
 closely attended by her mate. He indulges in 
 many beautiful evolutions, and guards her against 
 every enemy. When spawning is concluded, it 
 is found that she has nearly a thousand eggs for 
 every pound of her live weight. Take a handful 
 of these pearly pink eggs, and examine them. 
 Although delicate in appearance, they are not 
 only capable of standing great pressure, but 
 are so elastic, that if one be thrown down 
 it will rebound like an indiarubber ball. Once 
 the eggs are hatched, the fry afford delicate 
 morsels to a whole host of aquatic creatures 
 birds, insects, and fishes themselves. When the 
 fry attain to the "smelt" stage, they have an 
 equally hard time of it, and the number of their 
 enemies is hardly to be reckoned. 
 
 Salmon are local in their haunts and habits, 
 and on a fai/ourite "redd" numbers of fish are 
 found. This hardly conduces to success, for when 
 the beds are full of fish they are routed over and 
 over until much spawn is spoiled ; and it is when 
 salmon are abundant and lie closely that the 
 
 B 2
 
 4 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 dreaded disease makes its appearance. This 
 shows as a white fungus about the head and 
 shoulders, and gradually spreads until the fish 
 sickens and dies. Hardly anything is known 
 about the disease, except that it is infectious. 
 Newly-run salmon that come in contact with 
 affected fish soon develop it ; and when once it 
 breaks out, there is scarcely an individual but 
 what shows signs of the fungus. Spates and 
 floods tend to eradicate it, and these alone. 
 
 An interesting fact anent salmon is that they 
 produce hybrids with other fish. They breed 
 freely with brown-trout, brook-trout, also those 
 peculiar to Loch Leven ; and this is the more 
 remarkable as the offspring from this cross 
 in no wise sacrifice their fertility. That salmon 
 and trout are commonly found on the same 
 " redd " has long been known to poachers, though 
 scientists have only admitted the fact recently. 
 Here is an actual incident. Upon one occasion 
 a poacher found a freshly-run male salmon watch- 
 ing over a female, the former of which he gaffed. 
 Knowing that a second suitor would soon take 
 the place of the first, he allowed the she-fish to 
 remain. A second male attended her, a third, 
 and a fourth, she starting down-stream each time 
 her lord was taken. Upon her fifth return she 
 brought back a large yellow trout, and so much
 
 SALMON. 5 
 
 interest did the proceeding excite, that for a 
 time the two were left unmolested. The spawn 
 was then taken, hatched on a grill, and large, 
 healthy fry was the result. 
 
 Here the normal life-history of the salmon 
 must be recurred to. After a brief period spent 
 upon the spawning-beds, the breeding-fish return 
 to salt water. At this time they are in a 
 wretchedly poor condition lean and lank, the 
 flesh loose and " flabby." The spawned fish are 
 known as " kelts." Once, however, in the food- 
 abounding sea, they quickly recover condition, 
 feeding now, for the most part, on shrimps. 
 And here, for a time, we may leave them, 
 whilst we return to the river. The eggs are 
 hatched, the fry have absorbed their yolk-sacs, 
 and the tiny things are scattered over the higher 
 river reaches. As the warm days develop the 
 soft-winged ephemerae, the fry begin to forage 
 for themselves, and soon comes a crisis in their 
 life-history. Some day a brown spate comes 
 from the hills, the water is turgid, and in shoals 
 the silvery samlets rush down to the sea to 
 explore its wide world of waters. They usually 
 travel with the first floods of April and May, 
 and having by this time assumed the migratory 
 dress, are termed " smolts." At one time it was 
 supposed that the young of salmon left their
 
 6 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 river-nursery for the sea during the first spring, 
 but this is not so. Some few early-spawned 
 fish may do this, but the majority wait until 
 the following year. Once in the sea, smolts 
 grow at a rapid rate, and after from four to 
 twelve months, return to the rivers where they 
 were bred, as " grilse." As the grilse make up- 
 stream they are pretty, silvery fish, and afford 
 good sport. They vary greatly in weight, and 
 it is somewhat curious that, upon their first 
 arrival, they are invariably covered with " sea- 
 lice." These uninvited guests are soon ridded 
 in the rivers, as they do not long survive im- 
 mersion in fresh water. 
 
 Entering rivers to spawn, going down to the 
 sea, and re-entering the rivers, constitutes, shortly, 
 the life-history of the salmon. Speaking generally, 
 it feeds but little in fresh water, and loses weight ; 
 in the sea it feeds ravenously, and increases at 
 a most remarkable rate. One British-killed 
 salmon has attained to seventy pounds in weight 
 and four-and-a-half feet in length. This fish was 
 taken in the Tay, and a cast of it is now in 
 the Buckland Museum. Although this was a 
 monster fish, almost without precedent, yet forty- 
 pound salmon are not at all uncommon. In 
 rivers the food of the salmon consists mainly 
 of ephemerae and their larvse, worms, and the.
 
 SALMON. 7 
 
 spawn and fry of various fresh- water fishes. In 
 the sea its food is more varied and abundant. 
 Salmon are invariably found in the proximity of 
 shrimp - grounds, and they devour enormous 
 quantities of sand-eels. That, however, upon 
 which they most depend for sustenance is the 
 myriad fry of the coarser sea-fish. Of course, 
 it is difficult to follow the fish in its migrations 
 in salt water ; but, from several sources, hints 
 may be had of its wanderings. Salmon seem 
 to swim in the sea in comparatively small droves, 
 probably of from twenty to a hundred ; and it 
 is certain that they are much given to hugging 
 the coast-line. They stay long on banks or in 
 channels, where favourite food is to be had, and 
 are only driven off by receding tides. In spring 
 and summer they do not inhabit deep water, 
 but keep more to the banks, usually in only a 
 few fathoms of water. At this time the sand- 
 launce is much fed upon, as is the sea-urchin 
 in its earlier stages. Mr. Huxley asserts and 
 his assertion stands almost alone that the 
 salmon's food chiefly consists of a numerous 
 class of small creatures (entomostracous Crustacea) 
 found in semi-solid masses upon the surface of 
 deep water ; in short, that the salmon swims in 
 a species of animal soup, in which it has merely 
 to open its mouth and swallow what enters it.
 
 8 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 Every creature here named as constituting 
 the food of salmon has been found in the fish 
 itself, though, as these soft-bodied creatures are 
 so quickly digested, positive identification is 
 rendered most difficult. Both salmon and trout 
 have the power (which, under certain circum- 
 stances, they exercise) of ejecting any food recently 
 taken when they find themselves hooked or in 
 the meshes of a net. Quantities of herrings 
 have been found thus ejected. That the salmon 
 is a voracious feeder in the sea is certain, and 
 whilst in its native element it lays up a large 
 store of fat a fact which probably accounts for 
 its feeding but little in rivers. Like many other 
 sea creatures, it is able to draw upon this pro- 
 vision during its periods of semi-fasting, as when 
 on the spawning-beds. The intestines of sea- 
 salmon are frequently almost buried in layers of 
 fat, and another coating lies between the skin 
 and the flesh. Salmon constantly confined in 
 fresh water, as in lochs, and those which can 
 take the sea at pleasure, are altogether different 
 fishes. The flesh of the latter is firm and pink, 
 that of the former white and insipid. As salmon 
 grow rapidly, they probably do not attain, to a 
 great age. 
 
 After the salmon and trout proper come a 
 number of close cousins, concerning which much
 
 SALMON. 9 
 
 confusion still exists. This, however, is not for 
 want of attention to the subject by naturalists. 
 The discrimination between species and varieties 
 is often a difficult matter, and in this connection, 
 no rule which has been laid down has held good 
 for any length of time. This is owing to the 
 fact that fresh-water fishes adapt themselves to 
 local circumstances more effectually and more 
 rapidly than any other class of creatures. In 
 fact, in the family under notice, it is hardly 
 known what are salmon and what are trout ; 
 and the only satisfactory division is that of 
 migratory and non-migratory species. These 
 include the salmon, brown brook-trout, bull-trout, 
 salmon-trout, gillaroo, sewin, short-headed salmon, 
 great lake-trout, Loch Leven trout, a number of 
 others, and some char. Many of these are no- 
 thing more than varieties with local peculiarities, 
 probably produced by different conditions of 
 food and water in their particular haunts. The 
 inclination of naturalists has been to evolve 
 species from mere varieties by a process of 
 hair-splitting ; but in the future, and as the laws 
 which govern evolution ^become better under- 
 stood, the tendency will probably be the other way. 
 The salmon- or sea-trout, is, as its name 
 implies, one of the migratory species. It is 
 common in most salmon rivers, and is widely
 
 io BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 distributed throughout the country. In Ireland 
 it is the white-trout, in Cornwall and Devon the 
 peal. Although not now so abundant as formerly,, 
 it is still taken in quantities in the salmon rivers 
 of both our east and west coasts. Like its con- 
 geners, the salmon-trout enters rivers to spawn, 
 leaving them again after depositing its eggs. As 
 rivers are " early " and " late," the fish ascend from 
 the sea through summer and autumn, spawning 
 from October to December. The kelts descend 
 during the spring months at the same time as the 
 smelts, after which the latter rapidly increase in size. 
 The sea-trout is one of the favourite fishes 
 of the angler. It is usually game for some 
 weeks after trout are " out," and considerable 
 interest attaches to its coming. The fisherman 
 watches for signs of the sea-fish in autumn 
 as eagerly as he hoped for the advent of 
 the swallow in spring. The presence of the 
 former betokens long night-fishings and abundant 
 sport. He is not so wary as the trout, and a 
 far more assiduous feeder. In September, 
 anglers who love autumn fishing move down to 
 the deeps to meet the coming army. The fish 
 enter the river in shoals, and every freshet 
 enables them to gain a higher reach. As soon 
 as they have had time to disperse, the angler 
 takes the self-same stand from which only the
 
 SALMON. n 
 
 frost drove him last year, and once more he tries 
 all his old flies. The sea-trout are not slow 
 to take his lures, and many a stout fight is made 
 in the darkness. More often than not, the fisher 
 knows every hole of the pool, and fight as it 
 may, the game fish cannot shake him off. He 
 mechanically leads the fish in the darkness, and 
 can hardly discern it, even as he takes it off 
 the hook. At the coming of day, his creel is full 
 of beautiful fish, every one of which has tried 
 his skill, but has eventually come to his basket. 
 If the fish have run early, this fine sport some- 
 times lasts for a couple of months, and for the 
 salmon or trout-fisher it finishes the season. 
 
 It requires a practical fisherman to at once 
 detect the sea-trout. Speaking generally, it 
 resembles its cousin the brown brook-trout, except 
 that one is done in bluish-silver, the other in 
 brown and gold. The water in which it happens 
 to be for the time being, has much influence 
 upon its colour, and the silvery sea-fish becomes 
 more like the trout in proportion as it stays in 
 fresh water. The white-trout, which run. in 
 autumn, range from half-a-pound, to three, four, 
 and five pounds in weight ; fish exceeding this 
 being uncommon. The food of this species 
 varies considerably, according to haunt and 
 season. In the sea it is an omnivorous feeder,
 
 12 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 and is particularly fond of small crustaceae, sand- 
 hoppers, and other marine creatures. As it ap- 
 proaches the estuaries of rivers, its food becomes 
 more general, and when it enters them, the 
 winged water-flies constitute almost its sole diet. 
 
 Another member of the SalmonicUe is the 
 bull-trout, said to be a species by some, by 
 others only a variety. It is found in many rivers 
 common to salmon and sea-trout, and is fairly 
 abundant in most British salmon rivers. Its 
 specific distinctions vary greatly with local con- 
 ditions, so much so, sometimes, as almost to 
 make it past recognition. Grey-trout is one of 
 its provincial names, round-tail another, and on 
 the north-east coast it is known as the scurf. So 
 much does the bull-trout resemble the true salmon 
 in appearance, that, after the tail has been clipped 
 square, it is sold as such. This resemblance 
 between- the two species extends to haunt and 
 habit, food, spawning, and migration. The bull- 
 trout attains to a considerable weight ; and just as 
 the fish is in good condition or otherwise, so its 
 flesh is pink or yellowish white. As a game-fish, 
 it affords capital sport, and fights as vigorously 
 as the salmon or brown-trout.
 
 II. 
 TROUT. 
 
 OF all fresh-water fishes the brown brook-trout 
 is the one best loved by the angler. Salmon, 
 trout, and grayling, are the aristocrats of the waters, 
 and constitute the game-fishes of Britain. The 
 rivers and streams which they haunt lead us to 
 the finest and wildest scenery for only the pure 
 sparkling waters are congenial to them. Every 
 one loves running water, and there is a strange 
 fascination about it difficult to define. Men direct 
 their roads by the waterways, and for reasons far 
 other than those of trade and commerce. Only 
 the angler fully knows what these reasons are, and 
 he it is who sees a hundred sights and hears a 
 hundred sounds which are hidden from the 
 traveller on the dusty highway. Flogging the 
 trout-streams in spring, is surely the most fasci- 
 nating pastime in which man may indulge, and 
 truly blessed is he who has the opportunity. The 
 trout-fisher cannot but be a minute philosopher 
 " He must, he is, he cannot but be wise." This is
 
 i 4 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 how Shakespeare described his Antiquary, and 
 has not the author of "/ go a-fishing" taught 
 us that there is much in common between the 
 angler and the antiquary ? How shall we look 
 at the trout ; how review his history ; and how, 
 further, forge some description of that "cold, 
 sweet, silvery life, wrapped in round waves, and 
 quickened with touches of transporting fear"? 
 Others have begun at the beginning. 
 
 Of late years it has been our duty to patiently 
 watch and study the fish on their spawning-beds ; 
 and if ever trout-streams are more interesting 
 than when the March- brown and the May-fly are 
 " on," surely it is now. Look where we will, the 
 fish are heading up-stream to their spawning- 
 grounds. The salmon leaves the teeming seas, and 
 the trout his river reaches, for the tributaries. 
 At this time, the fish glide through the deep water 
 with as much eagerness as they rushed down the 
 same river as silvery samlets or tiny trout. 
 Maybe they will stay at some well-remembered 
 pool ; but the first frosts remind them that they 
 must seek the shallower waters. A brown spate 
 rolling down is another potent reminder, as they 
 know that by its aid rocks and weirs will be 
 more easily crossed. If their accustomed water- 
 ways are of solid foam, they get up easily ; but soft 
 spray gives them little hold, We must surmount
 
 TROUT. 15 
 
 all obstacles, however, and hurry on to the bright 
 brooks and pebbly shallows. The " redds " are 
 selected where the streams are clearest and purest, 
 where gravel prevails without the presence of 
 sediment. It is interesting to watch the fish settle 
 down to their domestic duties, and now much of 
 their ordinary watchfulness seems to leave them. 
 Although this facilitates observation, it also assists 
 the fish-poacher in his nefarious task. When the 
 female trout has scooped out a hole with her snout, 
 she deposits the eggs at intervals in the sand. 
 Whilst this is proceeding, with what care and 
 attention her lord attends her ! See how he rises 
 and falls, now passing over, now under, and 
 settling first upon this side, then upon that. 
 Observe, too, how he drives off the young and 
 unfertile fish which are ever lying in wait to 
 devour the spawn. When the " milt " has been 
 fertilised, the whole is covered over, there to 
 remain till the eggs are hatched. The quantity 
 of spawn deposited is such as to suggest that 
 nothing which man could do would have any 
 appreciable influence ; and this is more readily 
 understood when it is known that a trout deposits 
 one thousand eggs, and a salmon upwards of nine 
 hundred, for every pound of their live weight. In 
 this connection, however, a vast number of enemies 
 have to be taken into account. A single ill-timed
 
 1 6 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 spate will destroy millions of eggs by tearing them 
 from the gravel, and a whole host of aquatic 
 enemies have to be reckoned with. And this, it 
 must be borne in mind, before the fish are hatched. 
 The swan alone is able to destroy a gallon ot 
 spawn a day, and it is aided by other aquatic 
 birds. 
 
 The process of hatching is long ; but ulti- 
 mately the eggs hatch into avelins. These at 
 first lurk in any quiet retreat, though as soon as 
 the yolk-sac is absorbed, they begin to feed, and 
 are termed fry. Until this period they derive 
 their nutriment from the yolk, and absorb only as 
 much oxygen as will support life. The fry sink 
 into the sheltering gravel, get under little rests, 
 and only venture out as they see the tiniest bits 
 of animal food floating down. If the embryo 
 troutlets had enemies whilst still in the egg, they 
 have more now. Fry afford delicate morsels to 
 predatory water insects, to grebes, ducks, king- 
 fishers, herons, and to every mature fish that 
 haunts the stream. These have all to be reckoned 
 with, and the fry have a hard time of it. By 
 this time they have attained to an inch in length, 
 and are daily better able to look after themselves. 
 As they awake to their active summer life, the 
 troutlets find themselves far up the tributaries ; 
 and here they will remain until they descend to
 
 TROUT. 17 
 
 the main waters. This will be in from ten to 
 sixteen months. 
 
 When they have dropped down to the great 
 river, they are chary of venturing far out into 
 the world of waters, but for a time haunt the 
 gravel-beds, preferring those with little bays and 
 eddies. The pebbly reaches afford them the 
 greatest protection ; and the more thickly grown 
 are the banks with brambles and cresses the 
 better The first bring food ; the second afford 
 protection. Fry are usually found in about four 
 inches of water, and the tendency is for the fish 
 to get into deeper conditions as they increase in 
 age and size. They always exhibit sufficient 
 instinct, however, to remain near those spots 
 which would enable them to get into quiet eddies, 
 so as not to be swept away by the rushing waters. 
 When the. -fish descend the streams they have 
 attained to three or four inches in length, and are 
 known as " yearlings." This is a generally de- 
 scriptive term, though not always accurate. The 
 troutlets have now attained to a stage when they 
 can begin the battle of life, and although they 
 have fewer they have larger enemies. Herons 
 destroy quantities of yearlings, pike consume 
 great numbers, and we have seen a pair of king- 
 fishers feeding their newly- fledged young upon 
 them. Otters do but little harm to trout at this
 
 1 8 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 stage, preferring as they pass up the shallow 
 streams the abundant fresh-water crayfish. 
 
 At this stage of their growth troutlings are 
 exceedingly interesting ; and probably every angler 
 has watched them in early summer, when myriads 
 of black gnats revolve just over the water, gam- 
 bolling in the most frolicsome fashion. At the 
 end of two seasons the young trout have increased 
 to six or eight inches, and at this stage the angler 
 first becomes acquainted with them. Like smelt, 
 they are exceedingly troublesome. The progres- 
 sion from troutlet to trout may be said to take 
 place from the second spring to the end of 
 summer. The fish, which has now attained to 
 half-a-pound in weight, feeds on the various 
 members of the Ephemerae, grows rapidly, and 
 shakes off its enemies. And now having followed 
 the troutlet from egg to fuller life, we must go- 
 back for a moment to the fish that produced it. 
 When trout are spawning but little food is taken, 
 and that from the bottom. As the fish leave the 
 "redds" they are lean and lank, more nearly 
 resembling a pike than a trout. In an ordinary 
 season the fish are all off the redds by December. 
 
 It is not until March that trout leave their 
 dark retreats and begin to feed on the surface 
 flies that the first fine days find upon the stream. 
 If the season is open food is abundant, though
 
 TROUT. 19 
 
 the fish rise only for an hour or so in the middle 
 of the day. Every month brings its own peculiar 
 insect host, and the trout-angler, observing these, 
 dresses his flies accordingly. The different nature 
 of rivers influences not only the supply of insect 
 food, but the fish. The trout of slow, southern 
 streams grow quicker and heavier than those of 
 the colder northern ones. Speaking generally, 
 the small-winged flies are taken during the day, 
 the larger-winged ones at night. The trout, like 
 other fish and some birds, does not swallow its 
 insect food until a considerable pellet has been 
 collected in the mouth. The weather influences 
 the distribution of fish in a river, especially trout. 
 And this remark applies to the different heights 
 of the water. A good trout-angler always knows 
 just where to find his game, not only as to season, 
 but as to wind and weather. In the cold of 
 winter, so in summer, the fish are found in the 
 deep dubs, and a favourite haunt in spring and 
 summer is upon the "draws" and rippling reaches. 
 At flood-time the fish are driven to the stream- 
 sides, worms and food being washed there ; and 
 then they have an aversion to be in rushing, 
 turbulent, or muddy water. Of course, trout are 
 found in tarns, ponds, lochs, as well as in rivers ; 
 but the latter they love and thrive in best. 
 Every one knows what a handsome fish the pink- 
 
 c 2
 
 20 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 spotted trout is, and also that it greatly varies in 
 colour. Trout have the power to take on 
 themselves the colour of the stream which they 
 haunt, and no fresh-water fish conforms more 
 admirably to its environment. This is one of the 
 most remarkable traits in the fish's economy. 
 Other local conditions greatly affect the species. 
 Those in lakes attain to a considerable size, and 
 their predatory instincts are greatly developed. 
 The fact of trout interbreeding with salmon has 
 been already mentioned, as has also the fact of the 
 fertility of the produce. Trout are subject to the 
 same devastating disease as salmon, and of late 
 years several of the best trout-streams in the 
 country have been almost depopulated by its 
 agency.
 
 III. 
 GRAYLING. 
 
 AT the present time the Grayling is receiving 
 more attention than perhaps any other of our 
 fresh-water fishes. It is, moreover, in the transi- 
 tion stage, and is about to take rank as one of 
 the "game" fishes of Britain. Then a whole 
 volume by an eminent specialist has been devoted 
 to the setting forth of its merits ; and soon it is 
 hoped that the grayling will occupy the status 
 which salmon, trout, and char do now. 
 
 The grayling is one of the non-migratory 
 Salmonidae, and although abundant in certain 
 streams, its distribution as compared with trout 
 is extremely local. To get a good notion of 
 the beauty of the fish, it should be examined 
 in early November. Then it is in its prime, 
 and a typical specimen will show a small head, 
 lozenge-shaped eye, thick shoulders, and a gradual 
 taper to the caudal fin. In colour the fish is dark 
 velvety on the back ; sides having rich bloom, 
 shot with purplish copper; belly silver- white.
 
 22 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 The large dorsal fin has a line of red -brown spots, 
 and the sides indistinct lines of dark gray. The 
 grayling has a smell peculiar to itself, likened to 
 that of thyme by some, as resembling cucumber 
 by others. This characteristic is repeated in 
 Tkymallus vulgaris, the technical name of the 
 species. 
 
 Unlike trout, grayling do not thrive in moun- 
 tain streams, but in rivers having a happy com- 
 bination of ripple and pool, with clean, gravelly 
 bottoms. Their favourite haunts are still streams 
 and eddies, rapid shallows, and gravelly basins. 
 At times the fish are fond of lying at the tail of a 
 weed ; and deep water beneath a hollowed bank 
 is a sure "find" when fish are rising freely. 
 When the water is high and discoloured, they 
 are on the edge of the stream, on the look-out 
 for bottom food, but not refusing to rise at a 
 tinselled or highly-coloured fly. The grayling's 
 food consists of flies, larvse, Crustacea, and worms. 
 In spinning for trout in April and May, grayling 
 are occasionally taken with the minnow ; but in 
 this case they probably get hooked in driving a 
 supposed intruder from their spawning ground. 
 At all events it is a question whether a minnow 
 has ever been found inside a grayling. The time 
 of spawning is greatly dependent upon the season, 
 but is usually towards the end of April or early in
 
 GRA YLING. 23 
 
 May, The ova are smaller than those of trout, 
 and are opal-coloured. The young fish hatch in 
 about fifteen days, the period for trout ova varying 
 from forty to fifty days according to temperature 
 and water supply. 
 
 Grayling are not difficult to rise with a fly, but 
 they certainly are to hook. This latter requires 
 a quick eye and a delicate "strike," especially 
 when, as often happens, the fly is taken a few 
 inches below the surface, a ripple or an eddy 
 only betraying the movement. There is no 
 splash, no jump, no swirl as with a trout. The 
 fish is seen to rise straight and rapidly from 
 the bottom, flashing and disappearing with equal 
 ;speed. Sometimes the gleam of the silvery belly 
 is seen before the fish reaches the fly, when the 
 angler invariably strikes too soon. If not pricked, 
 grayling will rise again and again seven or eight 
 times, as we have seen, only to be hooked at 
 last. Once hooked, there is a peculiar " wobble " 
 on the surface of the water a moment when 
 many a good grayling gets rid of the hook. This 
 over, the fish fights gamely, often springing right 
 out of the water. October and November are 
 the best grayling months, though good sport may 
 be had to the end of February, providing there 
 is an absence of " snow broth." Morning and 
 
 O 
 
 evening are the best times for autumn fly-fishing,
 
 24 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 though a warm, dull day will keep the fish feeding" 
 from light till dark. Midday yields the best fishing 
 in winter. Upon one occasion, after fishing fly 
 all day for four brace of fish, worm was tried at 
 dusk. Precisely the same number was basketed 
 the last quarter of an hour by far the best fish 
 of the day. This is another illustration of the 
 uncertainty of sport. 
 
 The grayling angler is either a fly-fisher, or 
 he practises bottom-fishing. The former uses a 
 whole host of flies, the latter worms, gentles, and 
 grasshoppers. An extensive knowledge of the 
 habits of the fish is needed to practise either 
 successfully, as both have been elevated almost 
 to the level of a fine art. In worm fishing 
 some anglers fish with a fixed float, others with a 
 sliding one. In the latter case the depth need 
 not be continually changed, as the worm will 
 keep on or near the bottom. The edges and 
 eddies of streams should be carefully tried, as 
 also pools and " draws." Grasshopper-fishing is 
 just as deadly in certain rivers as it is un- 
 successful in others. The Teme and Swale, 
 respectively, give practical illustration of this re- 
 markable fact. The artificial " grasshopper " (the 
 barb being covered with a gentle or two) is cast 
 into streams, eddies, and deep water, and as soon 
 as it has sunk to the bottom it is raised a few
 
 GRA YLING. 25 
 
 inches and sunk again ; every likely place being 
 thoroughly searched by means of this sinking 
 and drawing up. Grayling rise to a very large 
 number of flies, and in dressing his lines the 
 angler is guided by the flies which he sees the 
 fish are taking. In midwinter, when the Ephemerae 
 are absent, it is difficult to know what to try. 
 Iron-blue, claret and orange-bumbles, grey-palmer, 
 red-spinner, silver-dun, and Wickham are all 
 good flies ; though light and dark snipe, dotterel, 
 and hackles have often brought big fish to our 
 pannier. Hampshire fishermen seldom fish with 
 anything but dry-fly, whilst northern anglers are 
 partial to hackle-flies. In the rapid and broken 
 waters of northern streams, the latter represents 
 the appearance of a drowned fly far more truth- 
 fully than the upright-winged one of the dry- 
 fly fisher ; and on the smooth, deep waters of 
 the south, the dry-fly in turn counterfeits the 
 natural floating-fly better than a hackle would. 
 The practised angler, however, does not rely on 
 any hard-and-fast rule ; from the character of the 
 river, he sees at once what is best likely to serve 
 his purpose. He has no absurd prejudice, and 
 even condescends to use the worm when the 
 fish invite him to do so. In fly-fishing the cast 
 should be made across and slightly down-stream, 
 the rod point being brought round as the flies are
 
 26 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 worked down -stream until they are under the 
 bank ; or, if wading, until immediately below. 
 As the best fish often take the fly under water, 
 it often repays the angler to let the tail-fly 
 sink to three or four inches, especially if a 
 bumble or hackled fly. He should strike gently 
 if the flies appear to stop, at any movement of the 
 water, and invariably before making a fresh cast. 
 
 The grayling has been described as the " lady 
 of the waters," which title it well deserves. Its 
 quick, silent rise is particularly graceful, though 
 the elegant movements of the fish are tantalising 
 enough. See the quiet, confident way in which 
 it rises at natural flies, and then the disdain with 
 which it treats your clumsy artifice. It will rise 
 to within an inch of your " correct imitation," 
 even apparently take it, and then with a graceful 
 swirl return to its resting-place. The principal 
 English rivers in which grayling are found are 
 the Teme, Test, Avon, Itchen, Wye, Dove, 
 Derwent, Wharfe, Swale, Costa, and the upper 
 reaches of the Trent. In some of these, accurate 
 observations have been made of the fish in its 
 relation to trout ; though the question as to 
 whether the two species can thrive in the same 
 stream is yet far from settled. The champions 
 of the grayling contend that the question is one 
 of food. Where they are introduced and the
 
 GRAYLING. 27 
 
 stock of trout deteriorates, that is evidence only 
 that the streams are too heavily stocked. Then 
 the fish have been introduced to waters which 
 are specially adapted to them, and naturally the 
 trout suffer. In such case it may be well to have 
 a good grayling-stream rather than poor trout- 
 fishing. Northern rivers do not produce such 
 large grayling as the more slowly running ones 
 of the south. In the Dove a fish of a pound 
 weight or upwards is the exception, whilst fish 
 of two or three pounds are not uncommon in the 
 Test and Itchen, and sometimes a noble four- 
 pounder gladdens the heart of the angler. The 
 extent to which the grayling is appreciated as a 
 "sporting fish" is shown by the fact that northern 
 anglers are endeavouring to have it included in the 
 list of "game" fishes a transition it thoroughly 
 deserves.
 
 IV. 
 
 PIKE. 
 
 ANENT the water-wolf, Izaak Walton says that 
 " the mighty luce, or pike, is taken to be the 
 tyrant, as the salmon is the king, of the fresh 
 waters. It is not to be doubted but that they 
 are bred, some by generation and some not, as 
 namely, of a weed called pickerel-weed, unless 
 learned Gesner be much mistaken ; for he says 
 this weed, and other glutinous matter, with the 
 help of the sun's heat in some particular months, 
 and some ponds apted for it by nature, do become 
 pikes. But doubtless divers pikes are bred after 
 this manner, or are brought into some ponds 
 some such other ways as is past man's finding 
 out, of which we have daily testimonies." * 
 
 * Richard Franks, in his Northern Memoirs, attacks 
 Walton for what he has said of the pickerel-weed in the 
 following terms: "When I met him (Izaac Walton) at Staf- 
 ford, I urged his own argument upon him, that pickerel- 
 weed of itself brings pickerel ; which question was no sooner 
 stated but he transmits himself to his authority viz., Gesner, 
 Dubravius, and Aldrovandus which I readily opposed, and
 
 PIKE, 29 
 
 It is not often that we find the father of 
 fishers either recording that which he himself 
 has not seen, or facts ; but here, for once, he is 
 found tripping as, indeed, he otherwheres admits, 
 when he throws the proof of the curious "fact" 
 upon the learned Gesner. And still there is a 
 half-truth in the statement, as it is now known 
 that the pike sheds its spawn upon pickerel- 
 weed, to which it adheres. The number of eggs 
 which a pike produces is enormous, and in three 
 individuals Buckland found respectively 43,000, 
 224,640, and 292,300 eggs in fish weighing 35 Ibs., 
 24 Ibs., and 28 Ibs. respectively. The first of these 
 
 offered my reasons to prove contrary ; asserting that pickerels 
 have been fished out of ponds where that weed (for aught I 
 know) never grew since the nonage of time, nor pickerel never 
 known to have shed their spawn there. This I propounded 
 from a rational conjecture of the Heronshaw, who, to commode 
 herself with the fry of fish, because in a great measure part of 
 her maintenance, probably _might lap some spawn about her 
 legs, in regard to adhering to the segs and bullrushes, near the 
 shallows, where the fish shed their spawn, as myself and others, 
 without curiosity, have observed. And this slimy substance 
 adhering to her legs, etc., and she mounting the air for another 
 station, in all probability mounts with her. Where note, the 
 next pond she haply arrives at, possibly she may leave the 
 spawn behind her ; which my Compleat Angler no longer 
 deliberated, but drops his argument, and leaves Gesner to 
 defend it ; so huffed away, which rendered him rather a formal 
 opinionist than a reformed and practical artist, because to 
 celebrate such antiquated records whereby to maintain such an 
 improbable assertion."
 
 30 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 measured 3 ft. loj in. in length, 2 ft. in girth, and 
 was the largest pike Buckland ever saw. After 
 being spawned, probably only a small proportion 
 of the eggs will ever be hatched, for they are 
 fed upon by a host of aquatic creatures. Although 
 the weed upon which pike spawn affords some 
 shelter, it does not offer sufficient to guard it 
 from many devouring enemies. Among these 
 are pike themselves, and numerous fishes that 
 share the same haunt. Wild fowl feed upon it, 
 and the swan seeks it out as a paradise for her 
 brown cygnets ; and it is well known that an 
 adult swan will destroy nearly a gallon of spawn 
 in a day. Then there are the small fry of various 
 fishes that are constantly on the look-out for 
 spawn, in addition to birds, beetles, and numerous 
 water insects, which destroy enormous quantities. 
 Even when successfully hatched, the small pike 
 have a hard time of it during their early career, 
 and unless they can manage to steer clear of 
 their parents and elder acquaintances, they will 
 not long survive. If the water in which pike 
 happen to be is limited, only a few of the largest 
 fish survive ; and in restocking, care should be 
 taken that the newly-introduced fish should be 
 somewhat equal in age and size. It has frequently 
 come about that one patriarchal pike has been 
 the only denizen of a pond, having long ago-
 
 PIKE. 31 
 
 devoured all its smaller compeers. In fact, this 
 devouring capacity of the fish, and its great 
 voracity, are among its chief characteristics. The 
 writer once saw a large jack swimming about 
 with a smaller one held crosswise in its jaws, 
 and has frequently noticed personal combats, with 
 attempts at gorging, by fish of nearly equal size. 
 Once in particular was this ferocious quality ex- 
 hibited, under what might have been thought 
 unlikely conditions. We had been trolling in a 
 mountain tarn, and had taken several fish, which 
 were thrown into the water-covered bottom of an 
 old, slimy punt. Even in this element one pike 
 attempted to swallow another of about its own 
 size, succeeding so far as to get the smaller 
 fish well into its throat. And it may here be 
 stated that what once gets impacted into a pike's 
 maw is not likely to return not alone by reason 
 of the ferocity already referred to, but more on 
 account of the eel- trap -like arrangement of its 
 fine, formidable teeth. Upon one occasion, two 
 pike were taken in Loch Tay, the one firmly 
 impacted in the mouth of the other. The head 
 of the one was tightly inserted up to the termina- 
 tion of its gill, and part of the first lower fin was 
 in the mouth of the larger one. The fish to- 
 gether weighed nineteen pounds. A couple of 
 pike were taken by a lad in a somewhat similar
 
 32 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 position from the Tweed, at Kelso, one half- 
 swallowed by the other. Both fish were alive ; 
 they were placed in water, when the larger made 
 two or three attempts to swallow its neighbour. 
 These fish were forwarded to Buckland ; and Dr. 
 Burton, who sent them, remarked that the lad 
 who captured them wondered much to see " a 
 muckle fish wi' twa tails." It is fortunate that 
 most fish seem to know the character of their 
 predacious neighbour, and no small fry are 
 allowed, or care, to go near his haunts those 
 that were there originally having long ago entered 
 its voracious jaws. And such jaws ! Well may 
 the little fish in sheer fright jump right out of the 
 water, or make for the shallows, where the water- 
 wolf cannot follow them. To the loach, the tiny 
 sticklebacks, and the silvery minnows, the pike is 
 a terrible giant and bugbear. Like most predatory 
 fishes, his appetite is enormous, and his digestion 
 quick. He will attack and attempt to swallow 
 one of his own species almost his equal in weight 
 and size, which feat we have more than once 
 witnessed. He is also a great enemy to trout, 
 and we know one of the best trout-streams in 
 the country which he has almost depopulated. 
 He is a difficult enemy to circumvent, his ex- 
 tinction being almost impracticable ; but with 
 many baits and lures he affords good sport to
 
 PIKE. 33 
 
 hundreds of anglers where there are scarcely any 
 other fish, and so we must not be too hard upon 
 him. 
 
 Throughout Britain the pike is both common 
 and widely distributed. It occurs not only in 
 canals and reservoirs (in some of which it is 
 extremely abundant), but also in many rivers. 
 Pike love deep, logged water, and when they 
 are found in running streams it is mainly in 
 pools and dams. Sometimes they lie in deep 
 dubs, but always make to the shallows to spawn. 
 The eggs are shed in spring, at which time, of 
 course, the fish is in poor condition, and is 
 generally to be found among weeds, or where 
 the water has backed up into an eddy. As to 
 the food of the pike something has been said 
 already ; it will devour almost all species of 
 fresh-water fishes, which it endeavours to gulp 
 down whole. It sometimes catches a tartar 
 in a prickly perch, which, finding itself in 
 the pike's jaws, immediately raises its back fin, 
 when all the efforts which the pike can exert 
 are unable to disgorge it. In addition to a 
 pretty wide range of fish food, the pike disdains 
 neither flesh nor fowl, and sometimes even in- 
 dulges in carrion. A pike has been known to 
 attempt to swallow a salmon, and it is well 
 authenticated that various species of the young
 
 3-j BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 of waterfowl have been taken, and they commonly 
 capture water-voles and rats. 
 
 One of the legends attaching to the pike is 
 that it lives to a very great age, but this is 
 only a legend. Certain large fish are known to 
 have lived from eight to twelve years, and the 
 facts in this connection are well authenticated. 
 There is a story of a pike having existed for two 
 hundred and sixty-seven years. This was the 
 famous Mannheim pike captured in 1497, and 
 which attained to the enormous length of nine- 
 teen feet. It had in its gills a brass ring, upon 
 which was engraved in Greek, *' I am the first 
 fish which was placed in this pond by the hand 
 of Frederick II., Governor of the World, on the 
 5th of October, 1 230 " surely the most marvellous 
 pike on record. Its skeleton is still preserved, 
 and is nearly nineteen feet in length, only it 
 happens to be a compound of two individuals, 
 and an examination has shown that several 
 vertebrae have been added. The ring of gilded 
 brass could " enlarge itself by springs " a highly 
 necessary qualification, all things considered. 
 
 There is one thing in the life-history of the 
 pike which has never been clearly proved. This 
 is as to its power of making overland journeys 
 of changing its haunt, either for food or water. It 
 is said that lately an English gentleman, residing
 
 PIKE. 35 
 
 at Antwerp, tested this "fact" by constructing 
 two new ponds, one of which was stocked with 
 pike, and the other with small fresh- water fish. 
 After two days the ponds were emptied, when it 
 was found that some of the pike had made the 
 journey between the two, and had created sad 
 havoc among their neighbours. This experiment, 
 however, could hardly be taken as offering con- 
 clusive evidence of the truth of the "fact" it 
 was intended to demonstrate. The habit of pike 
 sunning themselves on the top of the water and 
 their going in pairs is well known. 
 
 D t
 
 V. 
 
 PERCH. 
 
 THE armoured perch is certainly one of the 
 handsomest of British fresh-water fishes. He 
 is a bold biter, too, and affords sport to a whole 
 army of anglers who have never flogged a trout- 
 stream or fished a salmon river. His distribution 
 is almost as wide as that of the Englishman, and 
 he is as hardy as prolific. A large female fish will 
 yield two hundred thousand eggs in a season, 
 and as these hatch rapidly, the possible increase 
 of the species may be imagined. Perch-fry, how- 
 ever, have an army of aquatic enemies, which 
 allow but a small number ever to reach maturity. 
 There is a quiet confidence about the perch which 
 renders observation of its habits both easy and 
 interesting. If fed by hand they soon recognise 
 their friend, and are punctual in their appearing. 
 Looking down into the still, deep water, the 
 first sign of the approach of perch is the sudden 
 stampede of a shoal of silvery roach. The 
 metallic scales of these flash in the sunlight ;
 
 PERCH. 37 
 
 though the perch conform more nearly to their 
 environment. The reflection of the leaves and 
 the waving of the weeds cause the water to 
 be dark olive -green, and before the "bass" 
 rise to the warmer water it is difficult to detect 
 them in the deeps. As they approach the surface, 
 their easy evolutions and bright colouring are 
 at once seen. The burnished armour is deep 
 bronze, done with bars of darker green, the 
 whole shaded by a sheen of peacock iridescence. 
 The fins show as sparks of fire in the dark 
 water, and alternately the dorsal spine is erected 
 and depressed. Perfect amity seems to exist 
 betwixt the perch and his neighbours so long 
 as he is allowed " to rule the roast." If a 
 roach or gudgeon so much as attempt to in- 
 vade his feeding-ground, he loses not a moment 
 in preparing his weapons. It has been well 
 said that the armament of spines on a perch's 
 back acts as the index of his mind ; and the 
 conceit recommends itself to any one who has 
 observed the fish in its haunts. Just as the 
 smaller birds drop into their leafy retreats at 
 the shadow of a hawk, so the small fry of the 
 waters rush to their rests at the green glint of 
 the " water- wolf." Not so, however, the perch. 
 He parades himself before the pike, at the 
 same time erecting his spiny armour. Not only
 
 3 S BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 pike, but other predatory fish, and grebes, have 
 been found choked by armoured perch and 
 sticklebacks. 
 
 The salmon- or trout-fisher is rarely averse 
 to devote a day to perch. In fact, this is the 
 game at which he was " entered," and he has 
 never quite forgotten that first golden afternoon. 
 He remembers every bait which will tempt the 
 prettily-finned fish to drag down the float, and 
 has used them all. How many hours has he 
 stood by the bank of some sluggish stream or 
 quiet tarn, every moment of which was filled 
 with pleasurable hope ? And then the intense 
 excitement of hauling one of the crimson-tinted 
 fishes on to the bank, and how this was re- 
 peated again and again until the perch stopped 
 " biting." But to hundreds of others besides the 
 youthful enthusiast, this beautiful fish has given 
 quiet, pleasurable enjoyment ; and then, is he not 
 one of the very best-known of all our " sporting 
 fishes " ? Through the long hours of a sunny 
 summer day, the perch will sometimes continue to- 
 feed ; and then the catch may be counted by the 
 score. But oftener the conditions are not nearly 
 so favourable, and then the fish may severely try 
 the long-suffering patience of the angler. 
 
 '"Ad e'er a bite, Jim?" "No, I only cum 
 here yesterday morning." This is an apt though
 
 PERCH. 39 
 
 exaggerated illustration of the degradation to 
 which the float- fisher may occasionally be brought. 
 Anglers try to lure the perch with a great variety 
 of mysterious compounds, but usually the most 
 successful is a small red-worm. This should 
 be allowed to rise and fall, for the apparent 
 animation of the prey invariably excites the 
 fish to come at the bait with a rush. Immature 
 perch bite recklessly, larger ones much more 
 circumspectly. There are certain climatic con- 
 ditions, however, when almost every fish of a 
 shoal may be bagged. The dark, golden shadows 
 pass and re-pass beneath ; though immediately a 
 bait touches the water every fish rushes towards 
 it. The wide-open mouth, the flashing fins, the 
 erect dorsal spines all show irritation when the 
 worm is withdrawn. If the tactics are changed, 
 and a perch is hooked, he fights not ungamely, 
 though he sometimes succeeds in shaking himself 
 free. If, however, he is landed, his fate in no way 
 intimidates his neighbours ; they come, one by 
 one, until the last of the shoal is lying among 
 the docks and nettles. More frequently the big 
 fish are slow to be thus lifted out, though the 
 smaller ones seem to have no such clear objection. 
 In Winderniere and Derwentwater, perch are 
 exceedingly abundant, and sometimes hundreds 
 are taken from a boat in a single evening's fish-
 
 40 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 ing. But where they exist in such quantities 
 they are usually of small size. Thousands of 
 perch are also to be found in Slapton Ley, 
 Devonshire ; though the largest and best are 
 to be found in the Avon, Kennet, and the 
 Norfolk Broads. The economy of the perch 
 is somewhat difficult to comprehend. Being so 
 exceedingly prolific, they sometimes exist in 
 thousands. When this is the case the " schools " 
 invariably consist of the smallest fish. Only 
 large ones are to be had where the species is 
 numerically weak, and hence the best fishing is 
 to be had in preserved waters. The only way 
 to improve an existing stock is to reduce it by 
 two-thirds, then to feed the remainder. Unlike 
 some of the coarse fish, the perch rarely attains 
 to any size, and whilst it is not uncommon to read 
 of individuals of six, seven, or eight pounds, yet a 
 two-pound perch is a large and handsome fish. 
 Buckland took casts of perch of 3 Ibs. 2 ozs. 
 and 2 Ibs. n ozs., the former containing 127,240 
 eggs, the latter 155,620. Whilst perfectly wild 
 fish rarely attain to this size, it is not difficult 
 to produce larger ones under semi-artificial 
 conditions. 
 
 A stretch of water known to the writer runs 
 along the edge of an old English garden. The 
 fish are encouraged to congregate along its sides,
 
 PERCH. 41 
 
 and they show quite an amount of confidence in 
 coming to be fed. Coots and dabchicks breed 
 among the reeds, and both fight with the fish 
 for possession of the soft-bodied food. In hot 
 weather the perch swim near the surface, and 
 then the aquatic birds have no chance against 
 them. As a red-worm reaches the water, every 
 fish rushes up, and sometimes a dozen open 
 mouths reach the morsel at the same instant. If 
 absolute possession has not been gained, there is 
 a struggle, and the pool is lashed into quite a 
 fishy commotion. The jaws are at work, the red 
 fins flash like sparks of fire, and the bronze bodies 
 seem all over the pool at once. There is an old 
 pile which they love to haunt, and they are some- 
 times seen to gently rub their sides against it. In 
 sharp contrast to the dusky perch are the silvery 
 roach. These describe their graceful evolutions 
 just on the side of the " Perch-pool," but rarely 
 invade it ; if they do, the perch at once become 
 aggressive, and the " water-sheep " are not long 
 in making good their retreat. We have fre- 
 quently taken large fish of both species from this 
 preserve with fly, A quick eye and hand is 
 requisite to successful fly-fishing for perch, and 
 once indulged, it becomes quite a fascinating pur- 
 suit how fascinating the following incident will 
 show. A "gentleman poacher" of the neigh-
 
 4 2 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 bourhood made a wager that he would bring to 
 bank every one of a school of seventeen perch on 
 a single evening. The bet was taken, and the 
 feat was accomplished with only two lures red- 
 worms and a half worn-out trout-fly. It may be 
 added that every fish was returned to the hole evi- 
 dently none the worse for its night's adventure. 
 
 There is occasionally another night denizen of 
 the old " Perch-hole," which as an expert even 
 out-poaches the poacher. We take our place by 
 the stream- side and breathlessly wait. A faint 
 whistle, unlike that of any bird, comes up-stream, 
 and the dark water is moved. Trout cease to 
 rise ; the whistle comes nearer, and then a rustle 
 is heard. The osier-beds are visibly stirred, and 
 some long, dark object makes its way between 
 the parted stems. A movement would dispel the 
 dark shadow. The rustle among the withy wands 
 is repeated again and again, and now we know 
 that the young otters have left their impregnable 
 rocky bank, and are following their dam. She 
 has reconnoitred, and all is safe. Paddling down- 
 stream come two objects, and, arriving at the 
 pool, stop, tumble and frolic, rolling over and 
 over, and round and round, and performing the 
 most marvellous evolutions. They swing on a 
 willow spray, and dash with lightning rapidity at 
 a piece of floating bark, tumble with it, wrestle
 
 PERCH. 4S 
 
 with it, and go through a hundred graceful move- 
 ments ; then are motionless, then begin to play, 
 and so continue for nearly an hour, when, as if 
 suddenly alarmed, they rush down-stream to their 
 feeding-grounds. Fishing is continued through 
 the darkness, until, in the dewy meadow, another 
 sound comes up the wind, and the deep, sonorous 
 voice of an otter-hound breaks into the fairy- like 
 dawn scene.
 
 VI. 
 
 ROACH AND RUDD. 
 
 I HAVE just been indulging in an hour's delicious 
 laziness, dreamily watching a shoal of silvery- 
 sided roach rising and falling towards the warm 
 sunlight. It is hard to understand why anglers 
 should call the roach a " coarse " fish, as he is 
 a very Beau Brummel of the waters. Coarse 
 he may be as compared with salmon and trout, 
 but in no other sense. The character of the 
 fish in the water is in keeping with his aristo- 
 cratic appearance out of it. All his movements 
 are slow and studied. Whatever he does he 
 does gracefully. He is never in a hurry, and 
 rarely commits himself. Isaak Walton says you 
 may take notice that, as the carp is accounted 
 the water-fox for cunning, so the roach is ac- 
 counted the water-sheep for his simplicity or 
 foolishness. For our part, we have never found 
 the roach as stupid as he is reputed. Let your 
 float be too big or too brightly coloured, too near 
 the bottom or the top, your bait not to his taste,
 
 ROACH AND RUDD, 45 
 
 and you will find that he can be even hypercritical 
 upon occasion. He will swim above it or below 
 it, he will swim round and round it, only at last 
 to be disgusted at its clumsiness, to give a 
 delicate wave of his tail, and glide gracefully 
 away. And then the roach of my acquaintance are 
 like those of an eminent Frenchman inclined to 
 controversy, indecisive in conclusions. Some- 
 times they will bite, sometimes they will not ; one 
 never knows the reason why. To catch him the 
 fisherman must have a subtle eye and a steady 
 hand. One should take all sorts of precautions, 
 for if he is curious, he is also at the same time 
 excessively suspicious, and to catch him, one 
 must use the finest possible tackle. 
 
 The spot from which I watch my shoal of 
 roach is half buried in lush summer grass, so that 
 while I can see the fish, they cannot see me. All 
 their movements are the very poetry of motion, 
 and the shoal seem to act by some subtle, hidden 
 impulse. They occupy a deep pool in a trout- 
 stream, and as the anglers complain that they 
 destroy the ground-food of the trout for eight 
 months of the year, we have set about catching 
 them. The small fry of their kind are easily 
 taken in quantity, and to these the title of " water- 
 sheep" may be apt enough. An angler has to 
 put forth all his wiles to get round the bigger
 
 46 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 fish, but by exercising a little patience, he may 
 overcome all their idiosyncrasies. After our ex- 
 periences, we must admit that the roach is a 
 delicate fish to circumvent, always supposing that 
 he has attained to any size. But once on the 
 bank, there is no gainsaying his beauty as he 
 flops out his life among the docks and nettles. 
 The fish are just clean and bright from spawning, 
 and this is how they show : Back and upper 
 parts of a delicate weedy green, flashing and 
 glowing with metallic lustre ; these colours pale 
 as they approach the medial line, and then turn 
 silver, which passes into white on the under 
 parts ; the back and tail fins stand out sharply in 
 dull red, the anal and ventral fins glowing with 
 crimson. These, with a symmetrical body, and 
 a tiny, "blood-like" head turned into broad 
 shoulders, complete the picture of a handsome 
 fish. As much cannot be said of the edible 
 qualities of the roach as for his gentlemanly 
 appearance, though he has his champions in this 
 respect too, only he requires to be daintily done 
 in the cooking. 
 
 The roach is a fish of many waters, and 
 seems peculiarly adapted to various environments. 
 He is at home in sluggish streams with muddy 
 bottoms, though his colours become a little dulled ; 
 here, too, in this clear tarn, high on the hills,
 
 ROACH AND RUDD. 47 
 
 he lives in contentment with the trout and rudd. 
 In our trout-stream proper (whence we are 
 trying to rid him) he seems particularly happy, 
 only he steers clear of the rushing water, and 
 quietly allows himself to drop down to where 
 the water is "logged." In addition to these 
 situations, he may frequently be found in ponds, 
 reservoirs, and even in river estuaries only a few 
 miles above the sea. The regular haunts of the 
 roach, however, are sluggish rivers ; and the 
 stiller reaches of the Thames produce some mag- 
 nificent fish. London roach-anglers are said to 
 excel all others, and it is even asserted that they 
 have reduced the patient trade to a fine art 
 how fine only the initiated know. Roach spawn 
 in May and June, and in the Thames shoals of 
 them may be seen making their way to the 
 higher reaches, in search of suitable water- 
 weed. Upon this the spawn is deposited, and 
 so engrossed do they become in the act that 
 their dorsal fins often show above the surface. 
 The reproductive powers of the roach are enor- 
 mous, and a matured fish may deposit as many 
 as 480,000 eggs. When spawning is over the 
 shoals drop down to the pebbly bottoms to 
 scour themselves, and are in good condition in 
 a remarkably short time after returning to the 
 deeps. They will then rise to the fly like trout,
 
 48 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 but this does not last long, and by far the best 
 bait are gentles (especially those of the blue- 
 bottle), or paste mixed with cotton-wool. 
 
 In' our mind's eye there is at this moment a 
 favourite "dub," where, in bygone years, we 
 used to capture .fish of great size and numbers, 
 which were supposed to be roach. They turned 
 out, however, to be Rudd, "red-eyes" as the 
 old poachers called them. Walton was not 
 at all sure of the rudd, and thought it was. 
 a kind of bastard roach ; and he remarks that 
 the Thames, below London Bridge, affords the 
 "largest and fattest" in this "nation." According 
 to the knowledge of his times, these red fish 
 were produced by bream and roach mixing their 
 eggs and milt together, and although they be- 
 came numerous, they never grew to any great 
 size. This is quite erroneous. At this moment 
 a brace of magnificent monsters are lying before 
 me, and of all coarse fish, surely they must be 
 the handsomest. They have only been out of 
 the water a couple of hours, are in the pink of 
 condition, and just turn the scale at four pounds. 
 And this is how they came by their death. We 
 were searching for coot's eggs among the reeds 
 of a mountain tarn, when two or three big fish 
 began to rise from the warm, shallow bank. A 
 single hair-line was quickly tied, and the end fly
 
 ROACH AND RUDD. 49 
 
 dropped quietly among the shoal. There was a 
 faint show of concentric rings in the water, then 
 a mad plunge, and a ten minutes' fight. The 
 single strand of* hair held out bravely, and a 
 glorious rudd was pulled aboard, much to the 
 excitement of the girls and dogs. It was a 
 deep, handsome fish, with red eyes ; cheek and 
 gills golden yellow, this darkening to blue and 
 green on the back ; sides bright coppery, golden 
 -below ; belly tinged with pink, and shot with 
 metallic" lustre ; all the fins red ; the body 
 suddenly narrowing towards the tail, which is 
 deeply indented. One of the characteristics of 
 the rudd is its tenacity of life, fish sometimes 
 showing signs of life after having been out of 
 the water twelve hours. During the day the 
 rudd lies in the deepest part of its haunt, making 
 for the shallows at morning and evening. At 
 the former time it is a ground-feeder ; but 
 when it rises from the deeper water it takes flies 
 from the surface. We came to the knowledge 
 of this fact after a somewhat heated experience. 
 After fishing all day and taking nothing save a few 
 small roach, the sun got behind a dark thunder- 
 cloud, when the rudd immediately commenced to 
 rise. As twilight increased the mere seemed 
 everywhere broken by bubbles, and this time, 
 equipped with flies dressed on fine gut, the
 
 5 o BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 slaughter that ensued was great. That long 
 summer evening was a memorable one, and 
 in weight it proved the best fishing of a life- 
 time. The larger fish fought pluckily, but as 
 there was no method in their madness, they were 
 pulled in one by one. Yet what is the " play " of 
 a hundredweight of coarse rudd to that of a 
 ten-pound salmon fresh run from the sea ? But 
 are not comparisons odious ? A long day in the 
 old slimy punt has its quiet joys as well as one 
 after salmon and trout ; and then each can be 
 indulged in when the other is prohibited.
 
 VII. 
 
 CARP AND BREAM. 
 
 THERE are no indigenous British carp. Carp- 
 culture was once not uncommon in England 
 under semi-domestic conditions, though most of the 
 fish that now inhabit our ponds and rivers have 
 been introduced from the Continent. The first 
 mention of the carp is that by Dame Juliana 
 Berners, in the " Boke of St. Albans" printed by 
 Wynkyn de Worde, at Westminster, in 1496. 
 In this it is described as a " deyntous fysshe, 
 but scarce " which we may well believe ; for 
 more than a century later Leonard Mascall takes 
 to himself the credit of having introduced this fish 
 into English waters. As fish stews are found in 
 connection with almost every religious house 
 throughout the country, and as many of these are 
 specially adapted to carp-culture, doubtless these 
 fish were introduced and tended by monks. The 
 fish of the carp kind found most commonly in 
 Britain are the Common carp (Cyprinus carpis] ', 
 the Crucian or Prussian carp (Cyprinus gilelio] ; 
 
 E 2
 
 52 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 and the Golden carp, or gold-fish (Cyprinus 
 auratus). As already stated, these have all been 
 introduced ; but as carp in general are tenacious 
 of life even under adverse circumstances, the fish 
 have thriven amazingly in their naturalised haunts. 
 By far the most common of the carp is the first- 
 named, which occurs generally in ponds, and has 
 even found its way into several rivers. The 
 crucian carp occurs less abundantly, whilst the 
 gold variety is rarer still. In many parts of the 
 country this occurs in reservoirs of warm water 
 connected with manufactories the hot steam 
 driven into the water making it peculiarly con- 
 genial to the gold-fish. 
 
 " The Carp is the queen of rivers ; a stately, 
 a good, and a very subtle fish, that was not at 
 first bred, nor hath been long in England, but is 
 now naturalised. . . . The carp, if he have 
 water room and good feed, will grow to a very 
 great bigness and length ; I have heard to be much 
 above a yard long. It is said by Jovius, who hath 
 writ of fishes, that in the lake Lurian, in Italy, 
 carps have thriven to be more than fifty pounds 
 weight. Gesner says a carp has been known 
 to live in the Palatinate above a hundred years ; 
 but most conclude, that, contrary to pike or luce, 
 all carp are the better for age and bigness. The 
 tongues of carps are noted to be choice and costly
 
 CARP AND BREAM. 53 
 
 meat, especially to them that buy them ; but 
 Gesner says carps have no tongues like other fish, 
 but a piece of flesh-like fish in their mouth like a 
 tongue, and should be called a palate ; but it is 
 certain it is choicely good ; and that the carp is to 
 be reckoned amongst those leather-mouthed fish, 
 which I told you have their teeth in their throat, 
 and for that reason he is very seldom lost by 
 breaking his hold if your hook be once stuck in 
 his chaps. ... I will proceed to give you some 
 observations of the carp, how to angle for him, 
 and to dress him, but not till he is caught- . . . 
 and my first direction is, that if you will fish for a 
 carp, you must put on a very large measure of 
 patience. . . . and being possessed of that hope 
 and patience, which I wish to all fishers, especially 
 to the carp-angler, I shall tell you with what bait 
 to fish for him." 
 
 Were we disposed to preach a sermon on 
 carp, this advice from the father of fishers would 
 prove an admirable text. Carp are sluggish fish, 
 and usually haunt logged water. Common carp 
 almost live in mud, and as they draw their 
 sustenance from it, the flesh has generally a 
 muddy flavour. When carp were commonly kept 
 in the old fish stews, it was customary before 
 using them to take out a number and submit them 
 to the purifying influences of fresh water. This
 
 54 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 was done by placing them in a box or cage, which 
 was deposited in a stream, the fish thereby gaining 
 in flavour. Culture has done much to improve 
 the carp, and American pisciculturists have now 
 so far succeeded as to breed a scaleless variety. 
 Looking to the fish as a source of food supply, 
 this is an important step in advance, and the 
 result has been brought about mainly by careful 
 selection. Although, as already stated, carp are 
 found for the most part in ponds, yet they 
 inhabit rivers, though they avoid all currents, 
 and seek silted or muddy bottoms. In such case 
 they are not so prolific as when found in ponds, 
 and as well as producing fewer eggs, they spawn 
 less frequently. To prove how prolific, under 
 favourable circumstances, carp really are, it may 
 be mentioned that the roe of a fish 21 Ibs. in 
 weight contained 1,310,750 eggs, and another of 
 i6| Ibs. 2,059,750 eggs. There is one matter 
 anent the breeding of this species which is not 
 quite clear. Female fish have sometimes three or 
 four successive layers of eggs, which they would 
 seem to shed, but at remarkably short intervals. 
 If the weather is warm, spawning begins in April, 
 but more commonly in May ; even with fish in 
 the same haunts, and under precisely like con- 
 ditions, spawning sometimes continues for three 
 or four months. Temperature affects carp more
 
 CARP AND BREAM. 55 
 
 than any other fish, and this probably because it 
 is not an indigenous but an introduced species. 
 In cold water they spawn but seldom, their fecun- 
 dity being affected ; the fish are stunted and less 
 brightly coloured ; whereas in warm water they 
 live to a considerable age, and attain to a large 
 size. It is owing to these facts that carp flourish so 
 much better in the southern than in the northern 
 parts of Britain. 
 
 The food of the carp consists for the most part 
 of suoculent stalks of water-plants, of worms, 
 insects, and soft-bodied life generally which is 
 found in mud. In winter they lie in a semi- 
 dormant condition at the bottom of ponds partially 
 buried. This does not occur when the water- 
 temperature is high, as here the fish feed and 
 thrive through the hardest weather. Carp are 
 not much fished for, as they can hardly be said to 
 afford good sport, and then they are most difficult 
 to circumvent. They possess leather-like mouths, 
 and there is a barbule at the upper part of each 
 corner of the mouth. The following interesting 
 quotation from Lady Colin Campbell's Book of 
 the Running Brook and of Still Waters sets 
 forth some of the points enumerated above as to 
 the value of carp-culture, their rate of growth, and 
 above all, their tenacity of life. This refers to the 
 highlands of Limousin, and gives a graphic
 
 56 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 account of what takes place there every three 
 years : " All the able-bodied men of the country- 
 side are engaged for a certain day in October to 
 meet at one of the ponds, that on the highest 
 level being taken first. The sluices are opened 
 three days previously, and the water allowed to 
 gradually run off, leaving that bed of deep mud 
 which seems to be one of the necessaries of carp 
 existence. When there is only a thin rill of 
 water left trickling down the centre of the erst- 
 while pond, the fishing begins. On all sieves the 
 carp lie floundering, panting, gasping on the 
 expanse of mud ; in some places they are two 
 or three deep on top of one another. Though 
 the quantity of carp in these ponds is something 
 extraordinary, they do not seem to suffer indi- 
 vidually from their great numbers, for the fish are 
 remarkably fine and heavy. The men wade 
 through the mud, catching the carp by the gills, 
 and flinging them on to the bank. There they 
 are weighed by men who have come with carts 
 from the nearest town to buy the fish, and, after 
 the weighing, the carp are packed amongst straw 
 in the carts as tightly as possible. When the 
 carts are full, they return to the town, and the 
 carp are then placed in tanks. A carp takes 
 a good deal of killing, and though being tightly 
 packed in straw for a whole day, and jolted down-
 
 CARP AND BREAM. 57 
 
 hill for perhaps four hours, may strike him as 
 a novel experience, it does not do him the very 
 least harm ; as soon as he is released from durance 
 vile and placed in the tanks, he resumes the even 
 tenor of his way. . . . While the fishing goes on, 
 groups of women make fires on the bank, and 
 they heat cauldrons of soup mixed with strong 
 red wine, which is served out unceasingly in 
 bowls to the soaked and muddy fishermen. This 
 is a necessary precaution in a climate where 
 people are sometimes snowed up for days early in 
 November. The gipsy-fires and groups of women, 
 the men wading through the mud and water, 
 mostly dressed in frieze coats of the most brilliant 
 hues, and with high boots to protect them some- 
 what during their task ; the piles of shining, 
 glistening fish, and, in the background, the carts 
 waiting to take away the spoils, altogether make 
 a highly picturesque scene." 
 
 The second naturalised species is the Crucian 
 or Prussian carp. This and the last are much 
 alike in haunt, habit, and food. They spawn 
 somewhat earlier ; but as they rarely bite, and 
 when they do, yield but little sport, they are 
 hardly interesting to the angler. The crucian 
 carp rarely attains to the size of its congener, 
 the common species, and one of two pounds is 
 considered a large fish. There is a well-defined
 
 5 S BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 variety of the carp under notice that has some- 
 times been elevated to the rank of a species ; 
 but careful examination proves it to be only a 
 variety after all. 
 
 The Golden carp is the third species which has 
 found its way into Britain. It mostly occurs in 
 warm mill-ponds, and according to the degree of 
 temperature so its colouring is sombre or brilliant. 
 The very poetry of motion may be seen in the 
 movements of a " school " of golden carp, and as 
 they are frequently kept in confinement, the sight 
 is a not unfrequent one. The fish seem quite 
 to appreciate the care bestowed upon them, and 
 to reciprocate kindness. Although they rarely 
 breed when confined within a limited space, 
 yet they do so prolifically in open warm water, 
 and in this respect show that they can stand 
 varying degrees of temperature. 
 
 " The Bream, being at full growth, is a large 
 and stately fish. He will breed both in rivers and 
 ponds ; but loves best to live in ponds, and 
 where, if he likes the water and air, he will grow 
 not only to be very large, but as fat as a hog. 
 He is by Gesner taken to be more pleasant or 
 sweet than wholesome. This fish is long in 
 growing, but breeds exceedingly in a water that 
 pleases him ; yea, in many ponds, so fast as to 
 over-store them, and starve the other fish.
 
 CARP AND BREAM. 59 
 
 Gesner reports that in Poland a certain and a 
 great number of large breams were put into a 
 pond, which, in the next following winter, was 
 frozen up into one entire ice, and not one drop 
 of water remaining, nor one of these fish to be 
 found, though they were diligently searched for ; 
 and yet, next spring, when the ice was thawed, 
 and the weather warm, and fresh water got into 
 the pond, he affirms they all appeared again. 
 This Gesner affirms, and I quote my author 
 because it seems almost as incredible as the 
 resurrection of an atheist ; but it may win some- 
 thing, in point of believing it, to him that con- 
 siders the breeding or renovation of the silkworm 
 and of many insects." WALTON. 
 
 The Bream is close cousin to the carp, and, 
 like its congeners, loves large stretches of water. 
 All the members of this family do best in com- 
 paratively still water, and when their environment 
 is suitable, they grow and multiply exceedingly. 
 In winter they lie in the " deeps," but in summer 
 come to the warmer water-strata near the surface. 
 They swim in shoals, and at this time the back 
 fin is often apparent above the water. A " school " 
 of bream is an exceedingly pretty sight, and after 
 a hot day, they frequently indulge in evolutions, 
 just, as it would seem, for the love of the en- 
 joyment. They are rather omnivorous feeders,
 
 => BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 and by no means confine themselves to one 
 class of diet. They are fond of minute animal 
 organisms, worms, larvae, beetles, snails, and at 
 certain times they feed upon water-weeds. In 
 summer they rise well to several small flies, 
 though they prove rather a dead weight at the 
 end of a line. Red-worms furnish the best 
 general bait ; but a great variety of ingredients is 
 used for ground-baiting. When once a shoal of 
 fish has been attracted, it is difficult to alarm them, 
 and the fate of one member has often no deterrent 
 effect upon the rest. Spawning takes place in 
 April and May, and the number of ova in a single 
 fish has been known to number 100,000. Seeing 
 this, it is easy to understand the rate at which the 
 species reproduces itself under anything like 
 favourable circumstances. The bream grows 
 rapidly, and on account of its good qualities it 
 was much kept in stews in connection with the 
 religious houses of the past. The fish so kept 
 must have been specially tended and fed, and 
 those of the present day would hardly justify the 
 once popular proverb to the effect that, " The man 
 who had bream in his pond was able to bid 
 his friend welcome." By skilful cooking, bream 
 at their best can be made palatable, especially 
 at a time in autumn when they leave the mud and 
 weeds to feed almost exclusively upon delicate
 
 CARP AND BREAM. 61 
 
 ephemerae. Fly-fishing for bream can certainly 
 be recommended, as it affords a decidedly lively 
 change to the more patient methods frequently 
 pursued. 
 
 " The Chub has the same fault as the York- 
 shireman's horse he is bad to catch, and no good 
 when caught." Such is the character given to 
 this, another cousin of the carp. Although per- 
 haps not the best comparison to institute, the 
 chub in its habits somewhat resembles the char. 
 Like that fish it stays at the bottom of its haunt 
 in winter, rising to the warmer water in summer. 
 It is withal a shy and wary fish, and the successful 
 chub-angler must be a subtle fisher indeed. Just 
 as the larger trout, screened by overhanging 
 boughs, lie in the shady holes in summer, wait- 
 ing for insect food, so does the chub. And this 
 habit has suggested the same mode of fishing for 
 the two species. The trout is " dibbed " for with 
 a bluebottle-fly, and the chub is quite unable to 
 resist a cockchafer. " Dibbing " consists of fish- 
 ing with a bait at the end of a short line, from 
 some tree or overhanging rock, the bait barely 
 touching the water ; and in this way very large 
 fish are often taken. Great care has to be 
 exercised, however, as no liberties can be taken 
 with chub. An unusual shadow, the sight of rod 
 or line, will each drive down the shoal to the cool
 
 62 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 depths, and once driven away the fish are slow in 
 
 returning. 
 
 The diet of the chub consists of insects, 
 worms, and larvae, and it takes a good deal of 
 its food from the surface. Fish of from two 
 to three pounds are not uncommon, and indi- 
 viduals have been known to attain to four 
 and five pounds in weight. Spawning takes 
 place during the earlier spring months on the 
 shallower portions of the chub's haunts, and at 
 this time the fish are much less shy than ordinarily. 
 The chub may be said to be generally distributed 
 in the south, becoming rarer in the northern 
 counties. It affects rivers that have deep, 
 shaded holes, and is rarely or never found upon 
 rocky beds or in quickly running water,
 
 VIII. 
 
 BARBEL, DACE, AND GUDGEON. 
 
 In they went, and hunted about, 
 Open-mouthed like chub or trout, 
 And some with upper lip thrust out, 
 Like that fish for routing the barbel. 
 
 BUCKLAND was fond of quoting these lines, and the 
 subject of them he calls a water-pig, as its habits 
 in the water so much resemble those of a pig on 
 land. But whilst this is so, it must not be taken 
 that the barbel is a foul-feeding fish, as in this 
 respect it is cleaner than many of its congeners. 
 Worms form the chief portion of its diet, and for 
 these it loves to "rout" with its snout against 
 gravelly banks or clumps of protruding earth. 
 Like the silvery roach, the barbel feeds much at 
 night, and may almost be said to be nocturnal in 
 its habits. The fish has its name from six bar- 
 bules that depend from its lower and upper jaws. 
 Just as a cat's sensitive whiskers aid it in its 
 night wanderings, so these barbules doubtless aid
 
 64 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 their possessor in obtaining its food in its dark 
 retreats. All anglers must have noticed that 
 the barbel is most active at morning and evening, 
 and it is at these times that the best takes are 
 had. At dusk they issue forth and usually plant 
 themselves where their retreat is narrowed, and 
 there wait for anything that is washed down. 
 When light comes, they make back to their dark 
 recess, and both feed less, and are more inactive 
 than during the night. In winter, barbel stay 
 almost wholly in their dark retreats, and get into 
 very low condition. Their ordinary food consists 
 of worms, the fry of coarse fish, and minute forms 
 of aquatic life generally. An enormous number 
 of eggs are deposited in May and June, and these 
 are jealously guarded by the parents. After the 
 spawn is thrown down, both male and female 
 work assiduously in covering it with sand ; this is 
 done for protective reasons, and as the work is 
 progressing, the spawners drive away every fish 
 that dares to venture near. The eggs are hatched 
 in about a fortnight, and if the weather be warm, 
 the fry are soon able to shift for themselves. 
 The barbel sometimes attains to ten pounds in 
 weight, and one of fifteen pounds is known to 
 have been taken. The barbules on the head of 
 the fish detract somewhat from its personal ap- 
 pearance, but it is, withal, fairly handsome. The
 
 BARBEL, DACE, AND GUDGEON. 65 
 
 upper parts are copper-green, having a decided 
 bronze lustre ; under parts white, irides golden 
 yellow ; and the mouth a reddish flesh-colour. A 
 medial line runs along the body. In certain rivers 
 the barbel is fairly abundant, though from the 
 nature of its haunts, its distribution is somewhat 
 local. 
 
 The dace must not be omitted from our list of 
 sporting fishes. It shuns polluted streams, as also 
 those with quickly flowing water ; and is found in 
 greatest abundance in rivers that have deep, clear 
 pools. It will rise to the fly, and in this way 
 quite good takes are often to be had when the 
 fish are feeding upon winged food. Dace more 
 than other fish love to wanton in the streams 
 which they haunt, especially in warm weather. 
 They swim in shoals, and if observed with the 
 sun upon them present quite a pretty sight. 
 Ever and anon one of them turns its silvery sides 
 uppermost, and sometimes the stream seems to 
 flash with their silver. Buckland has said : " The 
 dace has the vivacity of the bleak and the swagger 
 of the chub, and that therefore it requires some little 
 attention to catch him." This is quite true, unless 
 he is in the humour to be caught which is seldom. 
 He may easily be netted, however, but netting in 
 this connection generally savours of poaching. 
 Except roach, no fish makes such bait for pike,
 
 66 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 and in this capacity the dace is sometimes used 
 for trout. The success of the fish as a live bait is 
 probably owing to the silvery sheen of its flashing 
 sides. The dace is small, and rarely attains to 
 more than nine inches in length. I have spoken 
 of the fish as taking the fly ; but Walton recom- 
 mends that it should be fished for with paste made 
 from a " pure fine manchet." And then he wisely 
 adds, that when you fish with it you must have 
 a small hook, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, or 
 the bait is lost, and the fish, too if one may 
 lose that which he never had. " With this paste 
 you may, as I said, take both the roach and the 
 dace or dare, for they be much of a kind in matter 
 of feeding, cunning, goodness, and usually in size. 
 And therefore take this general direction for some 
 other baits that may concern you to take notice of. 
 They will bite almost at any fly, but especially at 
 ant-flies." 
 
 The gudgeon is a gregarious fish, usually 
 swimming in shoals, and found in rivers and 
 streams having gravelly beds. Among the stones 
 and pebbles the little fish love to rummage, and 
 here they obtain their food. The parts of the 
 shallow streams which they best love to haunt 
 are where the water is "thin" and rippling, or 
 the " reaches " between deep dubs. Although 
 gudgeon are partial to fresh streams, they also
 
 BARBEL, DACE, AND GUDGEON. 67 
 
 inhabit ponds and canals, especially those which 
 receive drainage or surface-water from the land. 
 And in such situations, where these runners are 
 found, the fish may often be observed feeding 
 at their mouths. A shoal so engaged affords a 
 pretty sight, especially if the water be clear and has 
 the sun upon it. It is at such times that gudgeon 
 are seen at their best. They are exceedingly 
 lively, rushing hither and thither like streaks of 
 silver light the fish crossing and recrossing, but 
 never for a moment remaining in one position. 
 The surface-water from fields brings down a 
 quantity of various lower forms of life, and upon 
 these gudgeon feed. The little fishes are om- 
 nivorous in their appetites, and devour tiny 
 red- worms (which they love well), insects and 
 their larvae, small shelled-snails, water-beetles, and 
 spawn. But although such greedy feeders, they 
 are not particular in their diet, and the water 
 surrounding a certain sewage-farm known to us 
 swarms with them. Sewage in solution seems 
 not to affect them, and they frequently feed upon 
 the foulest matter flowing from pipes. Anent 
 this, Buckland writes of gudgeon as follows : "To 
 lawyers, the poor innocent gudgeon may be a very 
 serviceable fish, for he may be brought as a witness 
 into court, to prove that pollutions are not in- 
 jurious to salmon or trout fisheries. A live gud-
 
 68 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 geon is placed, in the presence of the Judge and 
 jury, in the polluted water, and he does not ' turn 
 up,' therefore the counsel argues that manufactories 
 or the town sewer are not in fault, as the water 
 allowed to flow into the river is not injurious to 
 fish life. If an expert in fishery matters does not 
 happen to be present, this gudgeon argument 
 will go down, as the Judge and jury probably are 
 not aware that gudgeon are very fond of living in 
 sewer-water as long as it is just running, whereas 
 the same water would be almost immediately 
 fatal to a trout or young salmon. The tastiest 
 gudgeon I ever caught were in a sewer which ran 
 along the east side of the College meads at 
 Winchester." 
 
 Enjoyable angling may be had with gudgeon, 
 and the sport is of the most lively kind. Small red- 
 worms are the best bait, with line well down ; and 
 if a shoal of fish have once been enticed round 
 the delicate morsel there is no reason why every 
 one should not be taken. They fight for the bait, 
 and the fact of a silvery brother being suddenly 
 jerked out of his element seems only to whet the 
 appetite of the next comer. And yet there is con- 
 siderable skill in gudgeon-fishing. The smaller 
 fish are apt to toy with the bait, and often manage 
 to disgorge it more quickly than the angler can 
 strike after the float disappears. Although gud-
 
 BARBEL, DACE, AND GUDGEON. 69 
 
 geon may be plentiful enough, they often seem to 
 be locally distributed in a river, and much of the 
 success, of course, depends in finding a shoal. 
 This habit of keeping much together, of being 
 sequacious, has caused the gudgeon to be named, 
 in common with roach, the water-sheep, not by any 
 means on account of supposed stupidity, but from 
 their folio w-my-leader-like movements. In some 
 parts of the country it is a common practice 
 before fishing for gudgeon to rake the gravel at 
 the bottom of the stream or pond. The cloud of 
 mud as it goes down attracts the fish to its starting- 
 point in hope of finding food ; and from the fact of 
 their being able to feed upon such minute 
 organisms they are rarely disappointed. When a 
 shoal is once concentrated, the capture of the 
 individuals is easy. In like spots which the 
 gudgeon loves best to haunt at ordinary times it 
 selects for its spawning-ground among loose 
 stones and pebbles and shallow water conditions. 
 The shedding of the spawn takes place in late 
 April and May, and hatching is soon completed. 
 By the end of August the fry have attained to an 
 inch in length, and are able to shift for themselves. 
 This is one of the easiest fish to keep in confine- 
 ment, as, with ordinary care, it can be retained in 
 health for weeks and even months. Fishmongers 
 
 o 
 
 keep the fish in vessels until they are required, and
 
 70 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 anglers do the same thing when they want fresh 
 bait. In some places gudgeon sell well as an 
 article of food, mostly for invalids, however ; 
 and this, as is said, because they are easy of 
 digestion. In appearance this is a pretty little 
 fish, with the upper parts of olive-brown, spotted 
 with black. The irides are orange-red, the lower 
 parts of a silvery white. A light medial line 
 runs along the body, and the tail is faintly barred. 
 Two tiny barbules hang from the angles of the 
 mouth.
 
 IX. 
 
 CONCERNING SMALL FRY. 
 
 i. 
 
 ON the fifth day of the dialogue, as reported 
 in The Complete Angler, Piscator remarks on the 
 existence of three or four little fish that he had 
 previously forgotten. These were without scales, 
 though they might, for excellency for meat, be 
 compared to any fish of greatest value and 
 largest size. " They breed often," he further 
 remarks, "as it is observed mice and many of the 
 smaller creatures of the earth do ; and as those, so 
 these come quickly to their full growth and perfec- 
 tion. This is needful, for they be, besides other 
 accidents of ruin, both a prey and bait for other 
 fish." All of which statements are true. 
 
 Now, if these things are small, they are by no 
 means to be despised ; for there is a tide in the 
 affairs of anglers when these " small fry " of the 
 waters afford as much sport on their pebbly 
 shallows as do the silvery-sided salmon in the
 
 72 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 pools of Strathspey. For just as Redwings and 
 Fieldfares constitute the first game of young gun- 
 ners, so the Loach, the Minnow, and the Stickle- 
 back are the shiny prey of the youthful angler. We 
 say angler, though as yet he has never handled a 
 rod, save, maybe, such as is constituted by a willow- 
 wand, a bit of string, and a crooked pin. But 
 the average boy has always a considerable dash of 
 the primitive savage in his composition, and this 
 first comes out in relation to fish rather than 
 fowl. See him during his summer holidays as he 
 wantons in the stream like a dace. Watch where 
 his brown legs carry him ; his stealthy movements 
 as he raises the likely stones ; and note that 
 primitive poaching-weapon in his hand. This old 
 pronged fork is every whit as formidable to the 
 loach and bullhead as is the " lister " of the man- 
 poacher to salmon and trout ; and the wader uses 
 it almost as skilfully. He has a bottle on the 
 bank, and into this he pours the fish unhurt which 
 he captures in his hands. Examine his simple 
 aquarium, and hidden among the wet water-weeds 
 you will find three or four species of "small fry." 
 The loach, the minnow, and the bullhead, are sure 
 to be there, with, perhaps, a tiny stickleback ; and 
 somewhere outside the bottle stuffed in cap or 
 breeches' pocket crayfish of every age and size. 
 The little Loach is essentially a fish of the
 
 CONCERNING SMALL FRY. 73 
 
 running-brook and of shallow-water conditions. 
 In haunt and habit it is quite a hermit, and loves 
 to lie under loose, flat stones, from beneath which 
 it is slow to emerge. It is nocturnal in habit, 
 getting quite lively at twilight, and as darkness 
 increases it comes abroad and roams about in 
 search of food. This consists of tiny insects and 
 various kinds of larvae, and in years gone by we 
 have frequently enticed the " lusty loach " from 
 his dark retreat by dangling before him a small 
 red-worm. This predilection for worms is also 
 seen during a freshet, for then, like trout, the loach 
 gets into the quiet eddies and backwaters waiting 
 for the soft-bodied creatures to pass. Sometimes 
 it may be seen foraging among the aquatic grasses 
 for anything which may have lodged there. 
 
 The loach spawns in spring, though the only 
 fact on this head which is known with cer- 
 tainty is its exceeding prolificness. It has been 
 remarked that the loach is particularly active 
 at night, and, when trout - fishing, we have 
 frequently noticed it take to the shallow water, 
 where it seems to enjoy swimming about with 
 its back-fin protruding. Eels feed much upon 
 loach, as do otters, and hence Nature has de- 
 creed that the three shall be night-feeders. The 
 body is covered with a smooth, slimy secre- 
 tion, and it would seem that on this account
 
 74 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 many of the water-birds reject them. In an 
 extemporised aquarium half-a-dozen loach are 
 swimming before me. With the light full upon 
 them they seem but little inclined to come from 
 among their sheltering gravel, though now and 
 again one of them takes a turn round the little 
 world of waters to see what it can pick up. 
 These little hermits are pugnacious enough, and 
 show desperate fight when one offers to invade 
 the domain of its neighbour. The most striking 
 characteristic of the fish are six barbules about 
 the mouth, which make them resemble barbels 
 in miniature. These testify to the fact of their 
 living at the bottom of streams, and using the 
 mouth as a sucker in search of food. These 
 barbules give the loach its popular name of 
 " beardie " ; it is also known as eelie and 
 eel-roach. A close cousin to the loach, and 
 the only other British fish of the same genera, 
 is the spined-loach or grounding, a much rarer 
 species than the foregoing, and less widely dis- 
 tributed. Like most fishes the loach has the 
 power to take on itself the colour of the stream 
 which it haunts, and those before me are greenish 
 brown, spotted and clouded with darker brown, 
 and beneath pale, yellowish white. The irides 
 are blue ; a medial line runs along the body ; and 
 the tail is beautifully barred. Such a delicacy is
 
 CONCERNING SMALL FRY. 75. 
 
 the loach to the gourmet, that in times past 
 numbers were, with great trouble, transported 
 to various European waters; and Frederick, King 
 of Sweden, had them brought from Germany and 
 naturalised in his own country. 
 
 The Bullhead, or miller's-thumb, must be a 
 terrible bugbear and goblin to the small fry among 
 which it lives. He leads a life not unlike that of 
 the loach, haunting like spots, feeding upon the 
 same food, and spawning during the first spring 
 months. A low, flat head, large eyes, wide, 
 gaping mouth, and body covered with slimy 
 mucus these hardly go to form a pleasant 
 picture. To the juvenile poacher the miller's- 
 thumb is probably never so popular as the silvery 
 minnow or the spined stickleback ; but one pe- 
 culiarity it has over these, and that is its 
 chameleon-like colours. ' Of a dozen specimens 
 caught no two are alike. He is yellow, brown, 
 black, green, creamy ; and doubtless these vary- 
 ing colours are due to the hues of the streams 
 he inhabits. In summer he indulges himself, 
 lying on some flat stone for hours, and there 
 taking his midday siesta. The bullhead is even 
 more formidable to handle than to look at, being 
 all over protected by spiny armour. The spines are 
 mostly carried on the fins, and these are frequently 
 used with considerable effect. The birds of the
 
 76 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 waterside often find that they have caught a 
 veritable tartar when they pounce upon the 
 bullhead ; and Frank Buckland tells us that he 
 once received a little Grebe (Podeceps minor] 
 choked by a miller's-thumb. " The fish," he 
 says, "was so firmly fixed in the bird's mouth 
 that I found it would go neither backwards nor 
 forwards, so I could neither press it down the 
 -oesophagus nor pull it out altogether. Mr. Grebe 
 evidently was not aware that the miller's- 
 thumb was armed with two very sharp spikes 
 on each side of the gill-cover, and when the 
 fish found himself in trouble, he simply expanded 
 these spines, which fixed him so firmly in the 
 bird's mouth that it died from suffocation. I 
 have had two or three specimens sent me of 
 Kingfishers destroyed by bullheads sticking in 
 their throats." It is worthy of remark that the 
 presence of spines in a species becomes perfectly 
 well known to the larger predatory fishes, and 
 although trout will take the bullhead dead, eels 
 are the only fish which can manage it alive. 
 
 The silvery Minnow is one of the prettiest 
 and most widely distributed of British fresh-water 
 fishes. It belongs to the Cyprinid<z> being the 
 tiniest of the fish of the carp kind, and not the least 
 beautiful. " The pink," Walton tells us, " makes 
 a dainty dish of meat," and to make a " minnow-
 
 CONCERNING SMALL FRY. 77 
 
 tansy," the little fishes must be fried with yolk of 
 eggs, the flowers of cowslips and of primroses, 
 and a twig of tansy. In colour the minnow is 
 dappled, or waved like a panther, with sky-blue 
 sides, and milk-white belly. " Piscator " sets down 
 "the pink" as a sharp biter, and a fit sporting 
 fish for boys, young anglers, or women that love 
 recreation. 
 
 The minnow haunts like spots to those which 
 trout love, and is fond of fresh, running water. 
 Bright, pebbly bottoms it prefers to sediment, and 
 being essentially a social fish, it invariably swims 
 in shoals. If you approach stealthily from the 
 meadow-bank into " Minnow Bay," you may see 
 the pink " at home," and of all little fishes he is 
 the most sprightly and interesting. Watch the 
 silvery shoal in its graceful evolutions, and you 
 will know well what is meant by the poetry of 
 motion. The only fit parallel to a school of 
 silvery minnows in the water, is a flock of 
 burnished starlings in the air. There is no ap- 
 parent guiding spirit, yet the fifty move like one. 
 They progress as by some hidden force ; the 
 water divides before them, and they wave through 
 its liquidness. Minnows have the power common 
 to most fishes of rapidly assimilating to the 
 varying colour of the stream. They change 
 from brown to gold, from gold to brown. To
 
 7 S BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 be seen, the minnow must be sought for ; it is 
 not apparent to the sightless seer. When once 
 caught, however, it is not difficult to keep in 
 view, for the tiny green-brown things are ever 
 active, and the even tenor of their movements 
 is only at intervals broken by throwing up their 
 silvery bellies and displaying their bright colours 
 to the sun. As soon as the minnows eye an 
 intruder, they move off a foot from the shore, 
 flicking their tiny dorsal fins the while, and 
 causing quite a minnow-commotion. When quiet 
 is restored, they are quick to return, and to watch 
 them you climb into an overhanging alder bough. 
 As luck would have it, you have chosen well 
 your time, and are treated to quite a charming and 
 unexpected sight ; for another shoal of minnows 
 has attracted one of the presiding spirits of the 
 stream. Over there is a stunted, leafless bough, 
 and a kingfisher has just alighted upon it. At 
 first his form is motionless ; soon it assumes more 
 animation ; now is all eye and ear. Then it 
 darts, hangs for a moment in the air like a kestrel, 
 and returns to its perch. Again it darts with 
 unerring aim and secures something. This is 
 tossed, beaten, and broken with a formidable 
 beak, and then swallowed head foremost. The 
 process is again and again repeated, and you find 
 that the prey is small fish. From watching an
 
 CONCERNING SMALL FRY. 79 
 
 hour, you are entranced at the beauty of the 
 fluttering, quivering thing as the sun shines upon 
 its green and gold vibrations in mid-air. You 
 gain some estimation, too, of the amount of 
 immature fish a pair of kingfishers and their 
 young must destroy in a single season. Later in 
 summer you may see the young brood, with 
 open, quivering wings, and constant calling, as 
 the parent birds fly to and fro. Their plumage is 
 little less brilliant than that of the adult. The 
 hole in which the young are reared is never made 
 by the parent birds, but always by some small 
 burrowing rodent, or occasionally by the little 
 sand-martin. The food of the kingfisher is almost 
 entirely fish minnows and sticklebacks forming 
 the principal part. Water-beetles, leeches, larvae, 
 and small trout, as well as the young of coarse 
 fish, are, however, all partaken of at times ;, and 
 during the rigour of winter, the kingfishers 
 betake themselves to the estuaries of tidal 
 rivers, where their food of molluscs and shore- 
 haunting creatures is daily replenished. Old 
 naturalists aver that the bird brings up its prey in 
 its feet ; but this is never so, as all food is taken 
 in the beak. 
 
 A near view of minnows feeding affords a 
 charming sight. They rummage among the 
 aquatic plants, seize the tiniest morsels of animal
 
 8o BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 food, and rush after the gauzy-winged ephemerae, 
 But a tiny red-worm what a prize, and what a 
 commotion it brings ! Like a brood of chickens 
 with an earthworm, every minnow goes pully-haul- 
 ing away at the delectable morsel as though for 
 very life. They rush hither and thither, chasing 
 and chased, fighting and struggling, until their 
 pink prey is torn into segments, when each rushes 
 off with what it can get. All this you may watch 
 in a very modest aquarium ; and as the lives of 
 the little fishes reach out to as much as three years, 
 there is ample time to form pleasant acquaintance. 
 This affords opportunity for studying the life- 
 history of the species, and all its domestic economy 
 is laid bare to the observer. 
 
 Perhaps the period of spawning is the most 
 interesting, and if you search out a spot where this 
 is proceeding, this is what you will see : Upon a 
 bed of clean gravel the female lies with her head 
 up-stream, and guarded on each side by a smart, 
 pugnacious gallant. We say smart, for of all the 
 small fry of the waters, minnows are the most 
 dandified, and glow with quite a variety of 
 resplendent colours. Spawning proceeds over 
 three or four days of early May. Courting trios 
 are everywhere dotted over the stream. As the 
 exceedingly small eggs are deposited, they are 
 impregnated, and show great tenacity in holding
 
 CONCERNING SMALL FRY. 8r 
 
 on to where they are thrown down. They attach 
 themselves to the interstices of the sand and 
 gravel, and probably hatch in a very few days. 
 So small are the eggs that they would be difficult 
 to detect, were it not that they are thrown down 
 in masses masses as large as a horse-chestnut. 
 All the creatures of the waterside assemble at the 
 minnows' spawning ground ; and where possible 
 the pink ought to be protected. They tend to 
 keep the water clean and pure, and themselves 
 afford the most valuable food for salmon and 
 trout, either in a wild or semi-wild state. Not 
 only do minnows hatch out rapidly, but grow 
 rapidly, and by the end of their first summer 
 they attain to an inch in length. To-day we 
 scooped up a dozen minnows in our landing-net 
 from a quiet backwater, and find that they are 
 done in all the glory of spring colouring. Rose 
 and purple flash along their sides, and it is this hue 
 that gives it the pretty, provincial name of pink. 
 Here is an interesting anecdote anent this 
 species. In crossing a foot-bridge, a gentleman saw 
 in the water what he thought to be a flower. Ob- 
 serving it more attentively, it was seen to consist 
 of a circular assemblage of minnows. Their heads 
 met in the centre, their tails diverging at equal 
 distances, and the latter, being elevated above 
 their heads, gave them the appearance of a flower
 
 S2 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 half-blown. One was longer than the rest ; and 
 as often as a straggler came in sight he quitted 
 his post to pursue him, and having driven him 
 away returned to it again, no other minnow 
 offering to take it in his absence. This he 
 repeated several times. The object that attracted 
 them all was a dead minnow, which they seemed 
 to be devouring.
 
 X. 
 
 CONCERNING SMALL FRY. 
 
 ii. 
 
 QUITE one of the most beautiful of fresh-water 
 fishes is the Bleak a pretty little study in green 
 and silver, and whose technical name implies 
 " white dace." It rarely attains to any great 
 size, though it may well be designated a ( sporting 
 fish." Although the angler may hardly think it 
 worth his while, yet the youthful savages to which 
 we have referred sometimes test the sporting 
 qualities of the bleak with considerable success. 
 Pleasant it is to watch the fish on a summer 
 evening rushing at every fly that touches the 
 water. Once, and once only, have we had an 
 evening with bleak. Staying at a country house, 
 we discovered that the fish inhabited a large pond 
 in the orchard, and immediately commenced to 
 angle for them with the most primitive weapons. 
 Nevertheless, within a couple of hours we had 
 done such execution, that we had to desist for 
 
 G 2
 
 84 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 fear of depopulating the pond. The fly used, 
 be it recorded, was the tiniest artificial black-gnat. 
 
 Rather resembling the minnow in general con- 
 tour, the back of the bleak is iridescent green, 
 the rest bright silver, with fins white. Add to 
 this a metallic lustre over all, and it will be seen 
 that the bleak is a beautiful fish. Whether in 
 still or running water, bleak are found in shoals, 
 and being omnivorous feeders they are among 
 the scavengers of the waters. They take almost 
 anything that comes down-stream, and are not 
 unfrequently found at the mouths of sewers. 
 
 Considerable interest attaches to bleak from 
 the fact that artificial pearls are made from their 
 scales. Fifty years ago the French were great 
 purchasers of bleak scales from the Thames 
 fishermen, but now the former supply themselves 
 from their own rivers. Besides the enormous 
 quantity of these pearls used in France, the value 
 of their export is over one million francs. " The 
 art of making imitation pearls is ascribed to 
 one Jacquin, a chaplet and rosary manufacturer, 
 at Passey, 1680. Noticing the water after 
 cleaning some white fish (Leuciscus alburnus), 
 a species of dace, he gradually collected the 
 sediment, and with this substance (to which he 
 gave the name of essence d 'orient] and with a 
 thin glue made of parchment, he lined the glass
 
 CONCERNING SMALL FRY. 85 
 
 beads, and afterwards filled them with wax. The 
 method of making the round bead is by heating 
 one end ot a glass tube and blowing into it two 
 or three times, which then expands into a globular 
 form. The workman then separates the bead, 
 places the end which has been heated on a wire, 
 and heats the other end. This process is called 
 bordering or edging. The best pearls are made 
 in the same way, the holes of the tubes being 
 gradually reduced by heat to the size of those 
 of the real pearls, the workman taking each 
 bead on an inserted wire, and, by continually 
 turning them round in the flame of the lamp used, 
 they become so true as to be strung as evenly 
 as the Oriental pearls. The lamp used is similar 
 to a glass-blower's foot-bellows apparatus, and the 
 work is done by lamplight, daylight being unsuit- 
 able. Seven pounds' weight of fish-scales give 
 one pound of essence d 1 orient" Land and Water. 
 Eels are among the mysteries of creation, and 
 this is the more puzzling as they are the most 
 common and widely distributed of fishes. Less is 
 known concerning them than almost any other 
 of our British fresh-water species. The eel is 
 just such a creature as would centre about it 
 superstition ; and in many country districts it is 
 not considered a fish at all, but a " water-serpent." 
 The mighty conger is cousin to the eels proper,
 
 86 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 the "sharp" and "broad" nosed varieties respec- 
 tively. We have already had occasion to remark 
 on the colours of fishes their beauty, their variety, 
 and, above all, the inherent power possessed by 
 most of rapidly changing from one colour to 
 another. In every case this is probably done 
 for protective reasons, and no fish is such an 
 adept at colour-transformation as the eel. There 
 is every shade of colour, from silvery white to 
 golden brown, and black ; and it is noticed that 
 these hues have direct relation to the haunt in 
 which the fish happen to be. 
 
 One of the great characteristics of eels is 
 what is called their " eel-fare " the passage of 
 <: elvers." This passage is a most remarkable 
 part in the fish's economy, though it can hardly 
 be said to be constant. In some rivers it takes 
 place in spring, in others in summer, and always 
 in enormous numbers. The eels that take passage 
 up the rivers are about three inches in length, 
 and it has been computed that nearly twenty 
 thousand passed a given point in the space of a 
 minute. Nearly all eels are nocturnal in their 
 habits, though these tiny elvers travel only by 
 day, resting during the night. Their move- 
 ments vary in different rivers. Where the bed 
 of the stream is rocky, and its current swift, they 
 form themselves into a closely-compacted body,
 
 CONCERNING SMALL FRY. 87 
 
 as though to aid their progress ; though where 
 the water is logged or shallow, each fish moves 
 at its individual pleasure. A host of aquatic 
 creatures follow the " eel-fare " and feed upon 
 its members. Herons, kingfishers, coots, water- 
 hens, and grebes may be found in its wake, filling 
 themselves to repletion on its tiny members. 
 There are other enemies beside these, for many 
 obstacles bar the course, and at this time elvers 
 suffer great mortality. It has been truly remarked 
 that the passing up a river of the young eels is 
 one of the most curious sights in natural history ; 
 and the perseverance of these little creatures in 
 overcoming all obstructions they may encounter 
 is quite extraordinary. The large flood-gates, 
 sometimes fifteen feet in height, to be met with on 
 the Thames, might be supposed sufficient to bar 
 the progress of a fish the size of a darning- 
 needle. But young eels have a wholesome idea 
 that nothing can stop them ; consequently nothing 
 does. As one writer says, speaking of the way 
 in which they ascend flood-gates and such-like 
 barriers: "Those which die stick to the post; 
 others, which get a little higher, meet with the 
 same fate, until at last a sufficient layer of them 
 is formed to enable the rest to overcome the 
 difficulty of the passage. The mortality resulting 
 from such ' forlorn hopes ' greatly helps to ac-
 
 88 BRITISH ^PORTING FISHES. 
 
 count for the different in number of young eels 
 on their upward migration, and of those which 
 return down -stream in the autumn. In some 
 places these baby eels are much sought after, and 
 are formed into cakes, which are eaten fried." 
 
 Eels spawn like other fishes, though for a long 
 period the most remarkable theories were held 
 as to their birth. One of the old beliefs was that 
 they sprang from mud ; and a rival theory held 
 that young eels developed from fragments sepa- 
 rated from their parents' bodies by rubbing against 
 rocks. One old author not only declared that 
 they came from May-dew, but gave the follow- 
 ing receipt for producing them : " Cut up two 
 turfs covered with May-dew, and lay them one 
 upon the other, the grassy sides inwards, and 
 then expose them to the heat of the sun ; in a 
 few hours there will spring from them an infinite 
 quantity of eels." 
 
 Four, or at most five species of Stickleback are 
 known to British naturalists. These are distin- 
 guished according to the number of spines which 
 they carry, and those mentioned above have 
 three, four, five, ten, and fifteen respectively. All 
 the sticklebacks are tiny fishes, though owing to 
 several characteristics they are remarkably interest- 
 ing. They have a marvellous power of conforming 
 to any and every environment, and are found in
 
 CONCERNING SMALL FRY. 89 
 
 pond and ditch, fresh water and salt even in 
 brackish estuaries. 
 
 When any common object has a great many 
 provincial names, be assured that it is dear to 
 dwellers in the country. A general favourite, the 
 stickleback has upwards of thirty aliases, and this 
 is probably owing to the fact of its being a nest- 
 builder. As in the case of a considerable number 
 of animals and birds, fish assume brighter and 
 more glowing colours as the breeding season ad- 
 vances. And this is particularly true of the stickle- 
 back at the time of nest-building. Now his colours 
 become bright and intense ; his under-parts glow 
 with silvery crimson, and his eyes and cheeks are 
 metallic lustred. With the light full upon him he 
 is almost transparent, and now he assumes a war- 
 like disposition. 
 
 The following, however, shows the whole breed- 
 ing economy of the stickleback as observed by the 
 Curator of the Norwich Museum : " Two glass 
 troughs filled with aquatic plants and animals were 
 provided, into which a solitary individual of either 
 species was inducted. Each made himself quite at 
 ease ; and a female companion being introduced 
 into the domicile, he was not long in commencing 
 the work of nidification. The appearance of the 
 three-spined stickleback was exceedingly beautiful. 
 The little creature's throat and belly were of
 
 90 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 a bright-red colour, and his eyes of a brilliant 
 bluish-green, having a perfectly metallic lustre, 
 not unlike the green feathers of a humming-bird ; 
 the whole fish seemed somewhat translucent, 
 and glowing with an internal brightness, He 
 selected a spot nearly in the centre of the trough, 
 and busily set to work to make a collection of 
 delicate fibrous materials, resting on the ground, 
 and matted into an irregular circular mass, some- 
 what depressed, and upwards of an inch in diameter, 
 the top being covered with similar materials, and 
 having in the centre a rather large hole. His 
 work was commenced at noonday, and was com- 
 pleted and the eggs deposited by half-past six in the 
 afternoon. Nothing could exceed the attention 
 from this time evinced by the male fish. He kept 
 constant watch over the nest, every now and then 
 shaking up the materials and dragging out the 
 eggs, and then pushing them into their recep- 
 tacle again, and tucking them up with his snout, 
 arranging the whole to his mind, and again and 
 again adjusting it until he was satisfied ; after 
 which, he hung or hovered over the surface of 
 the nest, his head close to the orifice, the body 
 inclined upwards at an angle of about forty-five 
 degrees, fanning it with the pectoral fins, aided by 
 <i side motion of the tail. This curious manoeuvre 
 was apparently for the purpose of ventilating the
 
 CONCERNING SMALL FRY. 91 
 
 spawn ; at least by these means a current of water 
 was made to set in towards the nest, as was 
 evident by the agitation of particles of matter 
 attached to it. This fanning, or ventilation, was 
 frequently repeated every day until the young 
 were hatched, and sometimes the little fellow- 
 would dive head foremost into his nursery and 
 bring out a mouthful of sand, which he would 
 carry to some distance and discharge with a puff. 
 At the end of a month, the young ones were 
 first perceived. The nest was built on the 23rd 
 of April, the young appeared first on May 2ist. 
 Unremitting as had been the attention of this 
 exemplary parent up to the time of the hatching 
 of the eggs, he now redoubled his assiduity. He 
 never left the spot either by night or by day, 
 and during the daytime he guarded it most pertina- 
 ciously, allowing nothing to approach. If any of 
 the water animals chanced to come near, he would 
 instantly pounce upon them, and unceremoniously 
 shove or tumble them over. If a stick or quill 
 were passed down from the top of the vessel, he 
 struck it fiercely, and with such smartness that 
 the blow was distinctly felt by the hand. The 
 fry were at first so minute and transparent 
 that they were scarcely perceptible, and it was 
 only by a slight fluttering motion their position 
 could be occasionally discovered, otherwise it was
 
 92 BRITISH SFORTING FISHES. 
 
 impossible to detect them. They were for a time 
 confined to the meshes of the nest and its near 
 neighbourhood, but by degrees were allowed 
 greater space, and the parent fish hollowed out 
 a sort of small basin for them, in which they dis- 
 ported themselves until they were strong enough 
 to take a wider range. In consequence of there 
 being no other fish in the vessel, we did not see 
 the battles and stratagems which are carried oa 
 between companion and rival fishes when engaged 
 in similar parental duties. The encounters upon 
 such occasions are said to be fearful and pro- 
 longed, and it is not without reason the young 
 nestlings are so carefully guarded, as acts of 
 cannibalism are not infrequent."
 
 XI. 
 
 ONCE SILVER STREAMS. 
 
 THERE is, and always has been, something fasci- 
 nating about running water. Savages name their 
 children after it, and their songs and legends 
 .are full of allusions to it. Not only is this 
 so with primitive people, but enlightened ones. 
 Even now, men direct their roads by the water- 
 ways, and for reasons far other than those of 
 trade and commerce. What these reasons are 
 may be known to every walker by the waterside 
 if only he possesses eyes, and knows how to 
 use them. No one knew better than Charles 
 Kingsley what charms there are about brightly- 
 running streams, and none enjoyed them more 
 than he. And this because he was an angler. 
 He knew and said that he saw a hundred sights, 
 and heard a hundred sounds, that were hidden 
 from the traveller on the dusty highway. The 
 pedestrian of the road sees only the outside of 
 the land sees only its commonplace sights ; but 
 the angler is brought face to face with Nature's
 
 94 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 secrets the flowers, and birds, and insect-life of 
 the rich river-banks. Here man never interferes; 
 here everything is wild wood and water, where 
 everything flourishes, and the drought never comes. 
 Rivers and streams are the chief arteries of the land, 
 and yield to a host of field and woodland creatures 
 the life-giving elements. The waters themselves 
 teem with myriad life, and that of a higher 
 organisation is everywhere along the banks. 
 
 That the running brooks and still waters of 
 this country still contain plenty of fish for the 
 naturalist to base his experiments upon there can 
 be no question ; but as to how far these afford 
 food for the people is a quite different matter. 
 Those who know practically about the cultivation 
 of fresh-water fishes, either in a wild or semi- 
 wild state, know how much yet remains to be 
 done how there exists the terrible subject of 
 pollution, upon which the law has but feebly laid 
 its hand. The foulest pollution is yet carried 
 on with impunity ; and it would seem that, in 
 spite of much half legislation, there is no power 
 in the land to stop it. And what is the outcome 
 of this ? The fresh, bright streams have become 
 in many places the swift scavengers of all that 
 is foul and filthy. The once silvery foam of 
 their waterfalls now comes down black as ink ; 
 life has gone from them, the flowers and trees
 
 ONCE SILVER STREAMS. 95 
 
 have disappeared from their banks. Many of 
 the best-known rivers and streams have been 
 depopulated of their pink-spotted denizens, and 
 have become such that no pure thing can live 
 in them. Were there any shingly beaches, or 
 any pebble beds, spawn would never hatch upon 
 them ; or were this possible, nothing hatched 
 could long survive. 
 
 Even now, pollution has done its worst. 
 Within the past dozen years, many salmon and 
 trout rivers have been depopulated to an alarm- 
 ing extent, and the causes that have contributed 
 to this end are on the increase. The late Richard 
 Jefferies, in one of his charming essays, says : 
 "It is the birds and other creatures peculiar to 
 the water that render fly-fishing so pleasant ; 
 were they all destroyed, and nothing left but 
 the mere fish, one might as well stand and angle 
 in a stone cattle -trough." But then the fish 
 are gone, too. And this being so, it may be 
 well to take one river as the type of many, and 
 see what phases of life have gone from it. Once 
 it was a famous trout - stream, and men who 
 wrote books on angling the kings of their craft 
 came to kill trout in its waters. But now 
 there are none to kill. A dozen mills pour their 
 dye-washes and waste into the stream, covering 
 its pebbly bottom with a filthy sediment, so
 
 96 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 destroying every natural " redd." There is never 
 a spawning ground along miles of its reaches, 
 and the poacher has given up his trade. Even 
 among the jute fibres from the paper-mills, the 
 scourings from the woollen-mills, the fish manage 
 for a time to drag out a precarious existence. 
 Then the fine mechanism of the gill becomes 
 coated, and the fish sickens and dies is suffo- 
 cated, in fact. As the salmon and trout are 
 weakened, they gradually lose power to work 
 against the force of the current, and are washed 
 far down - stream. Hence it is that the dead 
 fish are never found near the source of pollu- 
 tion, and the blame is invariably cast upon the 
 wrong person. The kind of pollution indicated 
 is mostly done by private proprietors ; but even 
 worse offenders are Corporate bodies, who in 
 most cases are the only competent authorities 
 to set the preventive legal machinery at work 
 to stem the evil. It is often urged that to obtain 
 the purity of the rivers, a host of manufactures 
 would have to be curtailed. But this is by no 
 means necessarily so. Much of the pollution of 
 to-day is owing simply to the selfishness of the 
 polluter. Appliances there are in plenty which 
 would save the river and only lightly touch the 
 manufacturer's pocket. But why should he go 
 to any expense when the Local Authority connives
 
 ONCE SILVER STREAMS. 97 
 
 at his transgression by helping to turn the river 
 into a vast open sewer ? So long as the "Authority" 
 pours filthy excrement into the river, the local 
 manufacturer has them on the hip, and is safe. 
 This Sanitary Authority for the most part con- 
 sists of magistrates and manufacturers ; of men 
 whose interests are so identical that they tacitly 
 agree that the townsfolk may play the part of 
 the shuttlecock to their battledores. And all 
 this in spite of the fact that these same towns- 
 folk' have paid, by their hardly-got earnings, a 
 hundred thousand pounds for the carrying out 
 of a main-sewage scheme, in order that the purity 
 of the river might be for ever retained. 
 
 Then there are those thousand objects of the 
 river-side, which have such a healthful influence 
 upon the inhabitants. Many of the trees stand 
 starkly outlined against the sky, with great black 
 skeleton limbs, the hoisted "black flags" of Nature, 
 proclaiming each that a life has been sacrificed 
 to pollution. The birds and flowers have gone, 
 and we have in their place a vast line of inky 
 desolation, unrelieved by colour or life. What 
 impresses one most is the desolation, and silence, 
 and bare coldness that seem to have taken 
 possession of the lifeless stream. Where are 
 the moorhens that rustled among the reeds ; the 
 kingfisher in green and gold ; the white-breasted 
 
 H
 
 98 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 dipper on the mossy stones, the coots, the grebes, 
 the teal, the blue heron of the shallows ? All 
 are gone a sacrifice to pollution. Once there 
 were salmon and trout, pike, perch, roach, and 
 bream ; these have gone the way of the birds. 
 Once the otter haunted the quiet pools, but it 
 left them when its food ceased. Once there 
 were water-rats, voles, shrews, and mice ; these 
 were long ago thinned out of existence. There 
 were the gauzy-winged flies, too, so exquisite 
 of form and colour, that were characteristic of 
 the anglers' months from dry March to sodden 
 October ; the trout-loved denizens of the streams, 
 the ephemerae. But these vanished at the very 
 first sign of pollution. And now that all these 
 are gone, our typical rivulet is what it is, a foul, 
 unlovely stream, destitute of life. Pollution is 
 indirectly responsible, too, for the disease which 
 periodically affects the fish in the rivers and 
 lakes of this country. Some few years ago 'this 
 scourge played terrible havoc in many of the 
 best northern streams, especially those which 
 were systematically polluted. Whether it is true 
 that pollution is the first cause of disease may 
 be open to question ; but it is certain that fish 
 once so afflicted never recover, save in water 
 of the purest description. 
 
 To look at the question of pollution, how-
 
 ONCE SILVER STREAMS. 99 
 
 ever, merely from Nature's standpoint may be 
 too narrow ; there is the far more important 
 question of Sanitation. And this applies to our 
 larger fresh-water lakes as well as to rivers. A 
 short time ago it was said that Windermere was 
 neither more nor less than a gigantic cesspool. 
 This was an exaggerated statement; but there 
 was probably much truth in it. Others of the 
 lakes are almost in worse plight. U lies water is 
 the receptacle of much foreign matter, which is 
 as injurious to health as to fish life, and certain 
 species have almost been driven from those parts 
 nearest the lead-mines. In short, there is no 
 northern lake which is absolutely pure. The sacri- 
 fice to pollution, then, is so great and so widespread 
 as to be almost beyond belief, and in a few years 
 it will have caused such devastation as can never 
 be remedied. Fish life may be returned to its 
 natural haunts if once legislation would stop pollu- 
 tion; But there seems very little inclination to 
 do this, nor will there be until the country is 
 thoroughly awakened to what is going on, and 
 to an appreciation of that of which it is being 
 deprived. 
 
 H 2
 
 XII. 
 
 FISH STEWS. 
 
 ARCHAEOLOGICAL investigations in the north are 
 constantly bringing to light remains of two insti- 
 tutions which once played a not unimportant part 
 in the domestic economy of our ancestors. These 
 are Pigeon Cotes and Fish Stews. They were 
 mostly attached to the old manor-houses and 
 baronial halls, and probably at one time there 
 were few of these strongholds without them. To 
 fully appreciate the value of their products, we 
 must go back to a time when the art of fattening 
 cattle was but little understood and rarely prac- 
 tised. At this period the supply of animal food 
 proved wholly inadequate to the demands of the 
 community, for the stock fed out of doors in 
 autumn was killed off by Christmas, and but little 
 fresh meat, except veal, appeared in the markets 
 before the ensuing midsummer. The more sub- 
 stantial yeomen and manufacturers provided 
 against this inconvenience by curing a quantity
 
 FISH STEWS. 101 
 
 of beef at Martinmas, the greatest part of which 
 they pickled in brine, the rest being dried and 
 smoked by being hung in the chimney. Hogs 
 were slaughtered after Christmas, the flesh being 
 principally converted into bacon ; and this, with 
 the dried beef and dried mutton, afforded a 
 change of salt meat in the spring. The fresh 
 provisions of winter consisted of eggs, poultry, 
 geese, and ill-fed veal, calves being conveyed to 
 market when only a fortnight old. 
 
 These things constituted the food of the upper 
 middle-class of the country districts, and it was 
 only those still higher who could draw upon the 
 " Culver-house " and the Fish-stew. To them 
 fresh fish and plump pigeons were always at hand 
 to furnish a pleasant change from the hard salted 
 meat. At this time the old British pastime of 
 falconry had not yet gone out, and duck, heron, 
 and moorfowl were often found at table. In the 
 wilder parts of the north, red-deer, fallow, or roe 
 still held the older woods of the hills, and venison 
 in season was always welcome. Every religious 
 house had its fish stew, as had the old halls, and 
 both monks and barons kept their " noble and 
 deynteous fyssche " for fast days, feasts, and 
 general use. 
 
 Full many a fair partrich hadde they in mewe, 
 And many a breme and many a luce in stewe.
 
 loz BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 The " partrich " was, of course, the partridge, 
 though it was much easier and more profitable to 
 keep domestic pigeons in store than wild game- 
 birds in pound. There were good reasons other 
 than those of luxury and comfort for setting such 
 store by the delicacies of fresh fish and flesh. 
 The prevalent diet has been referred to, and 
 there is no wonder that anything that could vary 
 or palliate it was eagerly cultivated. But there 
 was another reason. Those who were too poor 
 to afford salt meat subsisted upon rye-bread and 
 fish, and what with the indigestible food of the 
 rich, and the too meagre diet of the poor, 
 ague was of terrible frequency, and leprosy com- 
 mon. These must be ascribed to the unwhole- 
 some food and privations of the people, for both 
 disappeared as esculent vegetables came to be 
 cultivated, and salted provisions fell in repute. 
 
 Macaulay reminds us of the fish-ponds in 
 which carp and tench were fattened for the table ; 
 the warrens of conies, and the large round dove- 
 cot rising in the immediate neighbourhood of the 
 abodes of the great and wealthy, of the castle, the 
 convent, and the. manor-house. To-day there 
 is hardly an old hall or religious house in 
 the country which does not show traces of 
 its fish stew, or where this is wanting, the name 
 is almost certain to belong to some part of
 
 FISH STEWS. 103 
 
 the demesne, showing where it formerly stood. 
 The monks knew a great deal about the cultiva- 
 tion of ponds, the breeding and rearing of fish, 
 and their subsequent management and fattening 
 in the stews. This art is still much practised in 
 certain European countries, where the conditions 
 to-day are like those which prevailed in England 
 two or three centuries ago. Most of the fish 
 fatted were used upon fast days. In close con- 
 nection with this is the fact that the ruins of 
 almost every monastery in the country has its 
 stew, and such manor-houses as were occupied by 
 Catholic families. As well as introducing many 
 rare and dainteous fish from the Continent, the 
 monks reduced the cultivation of fish-ponds to a 
 science. It was customary to have a series of 
 these, which grew in turn both fish and vegetables. 
 The ponds were so arranged that they could be 
 drained at will ; and periodically the water was 
 run from the first, the fish being caught as it 
 emptied, and transported to the second. No. I 
 was then planted with oats, barley, or rye grass, 
 the crop being reaped as it matured ; and as 
 winter came round it was re-stocked with fry 
 and yearlings. By this process it was not only 
 sweetened, but its supply of food was greatly 
 improved, with the result that the fish turned into 
 it grew and fattened in an extraordinary manner.
 
 104 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 When each of the ponds had been worked in 
 rotation, one was growing a crop of vegetables, 
 another fry and yearlings, and the third breeders, 
 and fish fattening for the market. Suitable 
 weeds were grown about the margins of the 
 ponds, and in many instances much care was 
 taken in the matter of feeding. As the fish grew 
 to a large size they were netted and placed in 
 the actual stew. An ingenious contrivance for 
 taking these out at pleasure was a strong wooden 
 box, having holes in the bottom, which was 
 sunk where the water was deepest. As required, 
 the box was wound up with a chain, contents 
 and all. 
 
 A great variety of fish were kept in the ponds, 
 and fatted in the stews when these were in vogue. 
 Among them were carp, tench, pike, eels, trout, 
 and many others. Thought was given to the 
 habits of these, and while tench and eels suc- 
 ceeded best in mud, carp were kept on gravelly 
 bottoms. Certain fish devoured the spawn of 
 others, and care had to be taken to protect one 
 species against its neighbours. On this account, 
 carp and tench thrive and breed best when no 
 other fish are put with them into the same pond. 
 Walton reminds us that in stocking a pond with 
 carp, it is necessary to put into it two or three 
 milters for one spawner, and that it should have
 
 FISH STEWS. 105 
 
 certain characteristics. It should be stony or 
 sandy, warm and free from wind, not deep, and 
 have willows and grass on its sides. Then he 
 notes that carp usually breed in marl-pits, or such 
 as have clean clay bottoms, and are new. The 
 pike, or "luce," as it was called, was in great 
 request for fattening in stews, as it grew with 
 great rapidity. The char, one of the most beauti- 
 ful and dainty of British fishes, is said to have 
 been introduced by the monks, as doubtless were 
 the various species of carp. Carp-culture on the 
 Continent is quite an important industry, and in 
 ancient days this fish was in great repute for the 
 table. Of late much attention has been paid to 
 its cultivation; but in the " Boke of St. Albans" 
 it is described as "a deigntous fysshe, but scarce." 
 It is little wonder that the monks were alive to 
 the merits of carp, for no fish was better adapted 
 to thrive in the stews and fish-ponds, where the 
 monks usually kept their finny live stock. In both 
 France and Germany carp - culture is quite an 
 important industry, and a great many persons are 
 engaged in it, both men and women. The tench 
 being a fish of contented mind, almost any kind 
 of conditions will suit his temperament. As a 
 store fish he is invaluable, and in any case gives 
 nearly no trouble. Of all the fish of pond or 
 stew, the tench is the most accommodating.
 
 106 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 Like the carp, he can be conveyed long distances 
 to market, and, if not sold, can be brought back to 
 await another occasion for sale. Bream, as a 
 stew fish, has been appreciated since the time of 
 Chaucer ; and Walton, in his admiration, refers 
 to him as " large and stately." Bream, like tench, 
 are fond of still, quiet waters, with soft soil 
 bottoms, and in which they find their chief 
 sustenance. The fish has been known to attain 
 to 17 pounds in weight, though this of course is 
 exceptional. There is a French proverb to the 
 effect that " He that hath breams in his pond is 
 able to bid his friend welcome " ; and if the bream 
 is toothsome, he is equally good as a sporting 
 fish. 
 
 These are some of the fresh-water fish which 
 once occupied the stews in this country, and 
 might with profit do so again.
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE DEPOPULATION AND RE- 
 STOCKING OF TROUT -STREAMS. 
 
 DURING the past twenty years the trout-streams of 
 this country have been depopulated to the extent 
 of from fifty to a hundred per cent. The more 
 fortunate rivers are in the former case ; whilst 
 many famous trout- streams that once were, have 
 become too poisonous for fish to live in at all. 
 
 The causes which have contributed to this- 
 state of things are few, but are alarmingly on the 
 increase. Chief among them is pollution by town 
 sewage and mill refuse ; and those who, in the first 
 case, are alone competent to set the legal ma- 
 chinery at work are usually the greatest offenders. 
 These are the Corporations of towns. In a case 
 of summary proceedings for pollution* the pro- 
 secution must prove " dead fish." But direct 
 proof of this kind is often unobtainable. 
 
 * Under 24 <Sc 25 Viet., Cap. 109, Sec. 5.
 
 io8 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 No member of the migratory or non-migratory 
 Salmonida will spawn either upon mud or sedi- 
 ment. But, unfortunately, they do this sometimes 
 ere the deposit is thrown down. Then what 
 ensues ? Protect the stream as you will from 
 heron, duck, and waterfowl, and from 1,000,000 
 eggs with which the stream is spawned, not more 
 than a very small percentage of fry will come forth. 
 The spawning-beds of rivers must be pure and 
 clean, else no successful hatching can take place. 
 Where solid matter is held in suspension over a 
 spawning-bed the eggs are suffocated, and any few 
 that may escape usually turn out to be deformed 
 fish. This is owing to the clogging of the outer 
 wall of the cell-sac, which interferes with the equal 
 absorption of oxygen from the water. Therefore, 
 where this sort of pollution exists, the absolute 
 extinction of trout is certain at no very distant 
 date. 
 
 Of late years disease has played terrible havoc 
 in some of the best northern streams. In one 
 river I could name, scarcely a fish can be caught 
 which does not show in some way marks left 
 by disease want of tail, partial loss of fins, 
 white patches on the skin, where the fungus has 
 previously grown. That numbers of the fish 
 attacked do survive there can be no question ; 
 and that the disease may be prevented at the cost 
 of a few fish I have but little doubt. In these
 
 DEPOPULATION OF TROUT-STREAMS. 109 
 
 days of artificial rearing, restocking, and preser- 
 vation generally, anglers and angling associations 
 are apt either to forget or to ignore the balance 
 of Nature. They destroy her appointed agents, 
 and then fail to understand her consistent revenge. 
 Now Nature rarely overlooks an insult. That 
 the pink-spotted trout may live, a whole host of 
 stream-haunting creatures are condemned ; and 
 this, too, often on the most insufficient evidence. 
 Numerous waterfowl the coot, rail, kingfisher, 
 dipper are said to be injurious to the interests 
 of anglers, because they destroy the ova on the 
 " redds." But it is doubtful whether there is any 
 serious foundation for the charge, except in the 
 case of the kingfisher ; and Frank Buckland it was 
 who said that one might as well shoot a swallow 
 skimming over a turnip-field, as a dipper over the 
 spawning-beds in autumn. Even the harmless 
 water-vole, which is a vegetarian, and feeds upon 
 the thick, succulent stalks of aquatic plants, has 
 been denounced as a destroyer of spawn. But 
 the creature against which the orthodox angler 
 " breathes hot roarings out " is the Otter. Yet 
 how few fish does the Otter really destroy ! The 
 evidence to be gathered by those who live along 
 its streams all goes to show that fresh-water 
 crayfish form the staple of its food. It wanders 
 miles in a night in search of this dainty, and will 
 not partake of soft-bodied fish so long as this
 
 no BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 crustacean can be found. But the economy of 
 the otter ought not to be overlooked in connec- 
 tion with our fish supply. Probably its increasing 
 rarity has as much to do with disease as had 
 the extermination of the nobler birds of prey 
 with the grouse disease. A falcon always takes 
 the easiest flight at its prey;^ the otter, when 
 fishing, captures the slowest fish. In each case 
 they kill off the weakest, the most diseased, and 
 thereby secure the survival of the fittest. Cor- 
 porations are to blame in another particular. In 
 seeking to prevent floods, all obstacles natural 
 boulders, rocks, and the trunks of trees are 
 removed from the river bed. This takes away 
 the harbours of the fish without succeeding in its 
 object ; for the old and disused weirs that exist on 
 many trout-streams are important factors in pre- 
 venting the rapid flow of water. Another thing 
 to be considered is the nature of the dressings 
 put on land in the shape of manure. The soluble 
 parts, often poisonous, are carried by the rains 
 into the stream ; and, nowadays, drainage is rapid 
 much more so than formerly, when streams 
 took days to rise and fall. This brought food ; 
 but now surface-water is quickly directed into 
 channels, and as quickly conveyed into the river. 
 
 * This has been denied from an authoritative quarter, but I 
 prefer to let the statement stand.
 
 DEPOPULATION OF TROUT-STREAMS, in 
 
 Depopulation naturally leads to the important 
 subject of restocking. We have in England 
 hundreds of thousands of acres of fallow water, 
 waiting only for the application of labour and 
 knowledge to yield tons of fish food annually. 
 This applies not so much to rivers as to the larger 
 fresh-water areas, such as are found, for instance, 
 in the English Lake District. Here the lakes are 
 isolated, and all those conflicting interests are cut 
 out which usually are present where sea-going 
 Salmonida are placed in rivers. In the district 
 indicated, the benefits would be directly reaped by 
 those upon whom the original cost of restocking 
 devolved. The Lake District, or other Fishery 
 Boards, might undertake the experiment. But 
 what more nearly concerns us now is the re- 
 stocking of such rivers and streams as have been 
 depopulated. Streams, as a rule, afford more 
 sport than food supply ; but it is difficult to draw 
 the line between these and the great salmon- and 
 trout-producing rivers. Tributaries are the great 
 natural " redds " or spawning-grounds, not only 
 of rivers, but of lakes and sea-lochs. It matters 
 not whether restocking takes place by ova, fry, 
 yearlings, or two-year-old fish these are in- 
 variably turned into tributary streams a mile or 
 so above their outlets. 
 
 The artificial hatching and rearing of fresh-
 
 ii2 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 water fish is inexpensive and easy under anything 
 like favourable conditions. The larger and more 
 wealthy fishing associations adopt this method of 
 stocking or restocking their waters ; a method 
 which has the great advantage that fish can be 
 hatched in very great numbers, suitable to large 
 areas. The process of hatching is long, and we 
 cannot here speak of it. The eggs hatch into 
 avelins, which, as soon as they begin to feed, are 
 termed fry. The nutrition of the avelin is gained 
 from the yolk-sac, which still attaches to it. Prior 
 to the total absorption of this the immature 
 fish are stationary, and do not absorb oxygen or 
 to such a small extent that they cannot die 'of 
 oxygen starvation. If turned down into streams 
 with pebbly shallows, they sink into the sheltering 
 gravel ; and when the process of absorption is 
 completed, they begin life as fry. The charac- 
 teristics of the avelin, which we have pointed out, 
 make it easy and safe of transport. 
 
 Fry and yearling fish are most used for the 
 purposes of restocking. The former are lively 
 little things, about an inch long, and if turned out 
 under anything like favourable conditions soon 
 begin to fare for themselves. If fairly acclima- 
 tised, they may be turned into the streams after 
 they have been feeding for about a couple of 
 months. In doing this they should be handled
 
 DEPOPULATION OF TROUT-STREAMS, 113 
 
 as little as possible. They are easily injured, 
 easily killed ; and it is somewhat remarkable that 
 an injury, apparently slight, produces disease, one 
 of the symptoms of which is a whitish fungoid 
 growth that is, perhaps, infectious. Whenever 
 fry are transferred they should be poured from 
 tank to tank, and even, if practicable, into the 
 stream ; every sort of net for transferring should 
 be discarded. As a commercial commodity these 
 fish are exceedingly inexpensive. Robust fish 
 that have been feeding a month may be obtained 
 at as low a rate as two pounds per thousand, 
 and even less if great quantities are purchased. 
 In the case of fresh-water lakes, sea-lochs, or 
 rivers in which large fish already exist, it is 
 always advisable to turn in fry a mile or so 
 above the outlet, whence they will descend 
 in from eight to eighteen months. One of the 
 great secrets of success in turning down fry is 
 that the streams in which they are to begin 
 the battle of life are suitable to their re- 
 quirements. The stream, in the first place, 
 must be absolutely without pollution ; it must 
 have a clean gravel bed, with many little bays 
 and eddies. The young fish love to haunt 
 the bright, pebbly reaches, as these afford them 
 the greatest protection. The more thickly 
 grown the banks are with plants and trees, and
 
 ii4 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 the stream-margin with brambles and cresses, 
 the better. The first bring food, the second 
 afford protection. About four inches of running 
 water is probably the ideal depth for fry. They 
 may be " sown " in the stream as local conditions 
 suggest. The sowing ought always to be done 
 proceeding down-stream; "hides" and "rests" for 
 the fish should be inserted. These are com- 
 posed of two bits of brick placed about four 
 inches apart, and covered in with a piece of 
 slate. Into these the fry dart, and are safe 
 from their larger enemies, of which they have 
 many. One great advantage of turning fry 
 into brooks is that in time of "freshets" and 
 floods they are enabled to get into the quiet 
 eddies, and are not swept down by the rushing 
 waters. 
 
 When the fish of which we have been speak- 
 ing descend from the streams, they are from 
 two to four inches in length, and are known as 
 "yearlings." These are turned down in the 
 spring months, and from their age and size, a 
 greater percentage survive than in the case of fry. 
 As the fish increase in size, they have fewer, but 
 larger enemies. Otters, probably, do little harm 
 to trout at this stage of their growth, preferring,. 
 as they pass up the shallow streams in summer, 
 other game. Fry are often kept to grow into.
 
 DEPOPULATION OF TROUT-STREAMS. 115 
 
 yearlings in boxes, or "nurseries." It is pleasant 
 then to watch the progress they make, to see 
 how tame they become, and the manner in which 
 they rush out and wait about at feeding time. 
 Every angler has watched how the smaller wild 
 trout act in early summer, when the myriads of 
 black gnats revolve just over the water. In the 
 nurseries the little fish act in precisely the same 
 way, jump and throw themselves out of the water, 
 and gambol in the most frolicsome fashion. 
 
 It is almost useless to turn down small fish in 
 large sheets of water where great numbers of 
 predatory fishes, such as pike, already exist. 
 This applies with greater force where there are 
 few shallow-water conditions, which means that 
 small fish have absolutely no means of escape. 
 Probably the most effectual method of stocking 
 such water deep fresh-water lakes, reservoirs, etc. 
 is by two-year-old trout, or even older. Fish at 
 this age have attained to six or eight inches, and, 
 if turned out in early spring, often make upwards 
 of half a pound by the end of the ensuing summer. 
 These two-year-olds can be purchased at ^25 
 a thousand, whilst yearlings may be bought 
 at less than half that price ; and in either case, 
 with skilful care, there is little risk in transit. 
 Of course, larger fish than these can be obtained 
 for money trout from two to five pounds in 
 
 I 2
 
 n 6 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 weight which will give immediate sport. But 
 as the Salmonidcz increase in size the difficulty of 
 carriage greatly increases, and even if safely 
 turned out, they want time to get used to the 
 natural ephemera, in place of the artificial food of 
 the commercial fishery.
 
 XIV. 
 
 WATER POACHERS. 
 
 IN November, both salmon and trout are making 
 up-stream in considerable numbers, seeking out 
 the " redds," which will constitute their spawning- 
 grounds. Although the enemies of salmon, trout, 
 and char are numerous and ever-present, the fish 
 suffer most when they are lying on the spawning- 
 beds in a semi-torpid condition. On the upper 
 reaches of trout-streams hundreds of fish are now 
 spawning, lying side by side on the clean gravel 
 in such numbers as to constitute shoals. This 
 crowding on the ' : redds " proves injurious to 
 the fish, as the fungoid growth, which is so 
 terrible a disease, is transferred from one to 
 another ; if, indeed, this crowding is not the 
 original cause of disease. In the case of salmon 
 and trout, estimates vary as to the number of 
 fish that reach maturity ; this being variously 
 estimated at one from every 1,000 to 6,000 eggs 
 deposited.
 
 n8 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 The first and great destruction takes place on the 
 " redds." Everywhere over these are tiny raised 
 heaps of gravel, sheltering the spawn. But the 
 shelter is insufficient to guard it from devouring 
 enemies. These are in the air, on the land, 
 in the water. Many members of the hungry 
 Salmonidce themselves prey on the spawn, and it 
 is difficult to cope with them. Bunches of wild 
 duck and teal seek out the " redds " in autumn, 
 and feed on right through the night unless dis- 
 turbed. Thither, too, as I have daily witnessed, 
 the swan leads her cygnets ; and it is known that 
 one of these large birds will destroy nearly a 
 gallon of ova in a day. "My swan and her crew" 
 would have disposed of 2,400,000 eggs in that 
 time. I know now of more than one northern 
 trout-stream which has been totally depopulated 
 of fish simply by the large number of water-fowl 
 kept upon them. There are many fish that never 
 spawn, and these, together with the growing 
 yearlings, are always on the look-out for eggs 
 over the reaches. Sometimes the parent itself 
 will destroy the spawn. Secreted among the 
 thick herbage of the river-bank, I have been at 
 pains to find out which were the worst enemies 
 of the Salmonidce, and, to make these observations 
 the more accurate, I have shot and afterwards 
 carefully examined the creatures that haunt the
 
 WATER POACHERS. 119 
 
 waterways of salmon and trout. In this way I 
 have again and again taken ducks, coots, and 
 moorhens, with the spawn dropping from their 
 mouths and themselves glutted with it. Grebes 
 feed upon it, as do some of the coarse fish. In 
 mountainous countries the constantly-recurring 
 spates and freshets often destroy the eggs by cover- 
 ing them with sand and silt. Sometimes they 
 are washed clean away ; and when they get 
 strewn about the bed of the stream, there is 
 but little chance of surviving the attack of the 
 numerous water-beetles. These, too, make havoc 
 on the " redds," and as their numbers and 
 voracity are great, they are to be included in 
 the reckoning. Among them are the larvae of 
 the trout-loved May- and stone-flies, which on 
 nearly all streams prove so killing during the 
 early summer months. But, even at this stage, 
 probably the greatest enemy to salmon and trout 
 is pollution. The havoc committed by wild 
 creatures is as nothing to this. 
 
 The moment the tiny fish emerge from the 
 egg they are exposed to fresh perils. Both 
 salmon and trout consider the smaller fry of their 
 own kind quite legitimate food. Pike and nu- 
 merous coarse fish are partial to the same repast ; 
 but the pretty water-shrew, often said to have the 
 same penchant, is wholly innocent. Often and
 
 i2o BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 closely have I watched the doings of these tiny 
 things among the dead leaves and water ddbris, 
 and never have I doubted that the object of their 
 search was the larvae of water-beetles. They do 
 not destroy spawn, nor even the smallest fish. 
 Of both charges the water-ouzel must be written 
 down innocent ; and this was as the late Frank 
 Buckland thought. Another harmless vegetable 
 feeder is the vole, though it also has been de- 
 nounced as a destroyer. Nothing can be said in 
 defence of the kingfisher. The bad habit is bred 
 in him ; and he is almost welcome to the fish in 
 return for the pleasure he gives us as we watch 
 him capture them. Often, with her young ones, 
 does the hen-bird take possession of some watch- 
 tower just above the stream, and no fish she can 
 lift out of the water is allowed to pass under. 
 The heron is another poacher, and perhaps de- 
 stroys greater quantities of immature fish than 
 any of the creatures just mentioned. Tributary 
 streams, in which numbers of small fish are 
 usually found, are often covered in with wire 
 netting to prevent his depredations ; but, maybe, 
 a more practical method is to place in such 
 streams artificial " rests " for the fry and year- 
 lings to shelter under. The case against the 
 heron has long been proved; but the fact received 
 confirmation of a striking kind from the rearing-
 
 WATER POACHERS. 121 
 
 ponds at Stormontfield, where, upon a heron 
 being shot, it disgorged more than fifty fry. 
 
 One of the most curious enemies of British 
 fresh-water fishes is a small floating water-weed 
 the Bladderwort. Along its branches are a 
 number of small green vesicles or bladders, 
 which, being furnished with tiny jaws, seize upon 
 the tiny fishes, which are assimilated into its sub- 
 stance. This is a subtle poacher, the true cha- 
 racter of which has only lately been detected. 
 
 When salmon and trout are upon the spawn- 
 ing-beds their senses seem to become dulled, and 
 they are more easily approached than at other 
 times. Although the otter is usually regarded as 
 an enemy, it may be that he plays a beneficial 
 part in the economy of nature. He certainly 
 destroys fewer fish than is generally supposed ; 
 and his presence near the spawning-beds in some 
 rivers is, to my certain knowledge, indirectly 
 beneficial to pisciculturists. He kills off the 
 slowest, weakest, and diseased fish, and therefore 
 helps to eradicate disease. 
 
 The man poacher gets a large share of the 
 spawning fish. He obtains these in various ways 
 according to the approved local method. The 
 salmon offers a fair mark, and he spears it ; whilst 
 trout are taken in nets in enormous quantities. 
 But fish food taken in this way is insipid and
 
 122 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 tasteless. Yet it is eaten in poor rural neighbour- 
 hoods ; the fish costing only about twopence a 
 pound. Guns are sometimes used to secure big 
 fish, as are "click" hooks. Both these methods 
 require lights, which the poacher secures in the 
 shape of burning tar-brands. All through the 
 close season there is constant watching and war 
 between the poachers and the water-bailiffs ; but, 
 despite the exertions of the latter, cartloads of 
 salmon are often taken from the " redds " in a 
 single night.
 
 XV. 
 
 THE FISH-POACHER. 
 
 FISH-POACHING is practised none the less for the 
 high preservation and stricter watching which is 
 so characteristic of the times. In outlying 
 country towns, with salmon- and trout-streams in 
 the vicinity, it is carried on to an almost in- 
 credible extent. There are many men who live 
 by it, and women to whom it constitutes a 
 thriving trade. These know neither times nor 
 seasons, and, like the heron and the kingfisher, 
 poach the whole year round. They provide the 
 chief business of the country police-court, and 
 the great source of profit to the local fish and 
 game dealer. The wary poacher never starts 
 for his fishing-grounds without having first his 
 customer ; and it is surprising with what lax code 
 of morals the provincial public will deal when the 
 silent night worker is one to the bargain. Of 
 course, the public always gets cheap fish and
 
 124 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 fresh fish so fresh, indeed, that the life has not 
 yet gone out of it. 
 
 It is a perfectly easy matter to poach fish, but 
 the difficulty lies in conveying them into the 
 towns and villages. The poacher never knows 
 but that he may meet some county constable 
 along the unfrequented country roads, and con- 
 sequently never carries his game with him. This 
 he secretes in stacks, and ricks, and disused farm 
 buildings, until such times as they may be safely 
 sent for. Country carriers, early morning milk- 
 carts, and women are all employed in getting the 
 fish into town. In this the women are most suc- 
 cessful. Sometimes they may be seen labouring 
 under a heavy load carried in a sack, with faggots 
 and rotten sticks protruding from the mouth ; or, 
 again, with a large basket innocently covered 
 with crisp green cresses, which effectually hide 
 the bright, silvery fish beneath. 
 
 The methods of the fish-poacher are many. 
 The chances of success, too, are greatly in his 
 favour, for he works silently and always in the 
 night. He walks abroad much during the day, 
 and makes mental notes of men and fish. He 
 knows the beats of the watchers, and has the 
 waterside, as it were, by heart. He can work in 
 the dark as well as in the light, and this is 
 essential to his silent trade.
 
 THE FISH-POACHER. 125 
 
 During summer and when the water becomes 
 low, the fish congregate in deep "dubs." This 
 they do for protection, and if overhung with trees 
 there is here always abundance of food. If a 
 poacher intends to net a " dub," he carefully 
 examines every inch of its bottom beforehand. 
 If it has been thorned, he carefully removes 
 these small thorn-bushes with stones attached, 
 thrown in by the watchers to entangle the 
 poachers' nets, and so allow the fish to escape. 
 At night the poacher comes, unrolls his long net 
 on the pebbles, and then commences operations 
 at the bottom of the river reach. The net is 
 dragged by a man at each side, a third wading 
 after to lift it over the stakes, and so prevent 
 the fish from escaping. When the end of the 
 pool is reached, the trout are simply drawn out 
 upon the pebbles. This is repeated through the 
 night until half-a-dozen pools are netted, and, 
 maybe, depopulated of their fish. 
 
 Netting of this description is a wholesale 
 method of destruction, always supposing that the 
 poachers are allowed their own time. It requires 
 to be done slowly, however, and, if alarmed, they 
 can do nothing but abandon their net and run. 
 This is necessarily large, and when thoroughly 
 wet is a most cumbersome thing and exceedingly 
 heavy. The capturing of a net stops the depre-
 
 i 2 6 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 dations of the poachers for a while, as these, 
 being large, take long to knit. For narrower 
 streams, pretty much the same method as that 
 indicated above is used, only the net is smaller, 
 and to it are attached two poles. The method of 
 working this is precisely similar to that of the 
 last. 
 
 A species of poaching, which the older 
 hands rarely go in for, is that of poisoning. 
 Chloride of lime is the agent most in use, as it 
 does not injure the edible parts. This is thrown 
 into the river where fish are known to lie, and 
 its deadly influence is soon seen. The fish be- 
 come poisoned and weakened, and soon float 
 belly uppermost. This at once renders them 
 conspicuous, and, as they are on the surface of 
 the stream, they are simply lifted out of the water 
 with a landing-net. This is a most wholesale 
 and cowardly method, as it frequently poisons the 
 fish for miles down-stream ; it not only kills 
 the larger fish, but destroys great quantities of 
 immature ones, which are wholly unfit for food. 
 Trout which come by their death in this way 
 have the usually pink parts of a dull white, with 
 the eyes and gills of the same colour, and covered 
 with a thin, white film. This substance is much 
 used in mills on the banks of trout-streams, 
 and probably more fish are destroyed by this kind
 
 THE FISH-POACHER. 127 
 
 of pollution in a month than the most inveterate 
 poacher will kill in a year. 
 
 Throughout summer fish are in season, but the 
 really serious poaching is practised during close 
 time. Salmon offer fair marks, and the poacher 
 obtains these by spearing. A pronged instru- 
 ment is driven into the fleshy shoulders of the 
 fish, and it is hauled out on to the bank. In this 
 way sometimes more fish are obtained in a 
 night than can be carried away ; and when 
 the gang is chased by watchers the fish have 
 generally to be left behind, as they are difficult 
 things to transport. In one outlying village, 
 during last close season, poached salmon was 
 so common that the cottagers fed their poultry 
 upon it right through the winter. It is said 
 that several fish were taken each over twenty 
 pounds in weight. Another way of securing 
 salmon and trout from the spawning " redds " is 
 by means of " click-hooks." These are simply 
 large salmon -hooks bound together shaft to shaft, 
 and attached to a long cord ; a bit of lead 
 balances them, and adds weight. These are 
 used in deep rivers, where spearing by wading 
 is impracticable. When a fish is seen, the 
 hooks are thrown beyond it, and then gently 
 dragged until they come immediately beneath ; 
 a sharp " click " usually sends them into the soft
 
 128 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 under-parts of the fish, which is then drawn out. 
 That natural poacher, the pike, is frequently 
 ridded from trout-streams in this fashion. Of 
 course, poaching with click-hooks requires to be 
 done in the light, or by the aid of an artificial one. 
 Lights attract salmon and trout just as they 
 attract birds, and tar-brands are frequently used 
 by poachers. Shooting is sometimes resorted to, 
 but for this class of poaching the habits and 
 beats of the water-bailiffs require to be accurately 
 known. The method has the advantage of being 
 quick ; and a gun in skilful hands, and at a short 
 distance, may be used without injuring the fleshy 
 parts of the body. That deadly bait, salmon-roe, 
 is now rarely used, the method of preparing it 
 having evidently died out with the old-fashioned 
 poachers, who used it with such effect. 
 
 The capture of either poachers or their nets 
 is often difficult to accomplish. The former wind 
 their sinuous way, snake-like, through the wet 
 meadows in approaching the rivers, and their 
 nets are rarely kept at home. These they secrete 
 about farm buildings, in dry ditches, or among 
 the bushes in close proximity to their poaching 
 grounds. Were they kept at home, the obtaining 
 of a search-warrant by the police or local angling 
 association would always render their custody a 
 critical one. They are sometimes kept in the
 
 THE FISH-POACHER. 129 
 
 poachers' houses, though only for a short period, 
 when about to be used. At this time the police 
 have found them secreted in the chimney, between 
 a bed and the mattress, or even wound about 
 the portly persons of the poachers' wives. The 
 women are not always simply aiders and abettors, 
 but in poaching sometimes play a more important 
 role. They have frequently been taken red- 
 handed by the watchers. The vocation of these 
 latter is a hard one. They work at night, and 
 require to be most on the alert during rough and 
 wet weather in the winter, when the fish are 
 spawning. Sometimes they must remain still for 
 hours in freezing clothes; and in summer they 
 not unfrequently lie all night in dank and wet 
 herbage. They see the night side of nature, and 
 many of them are fairly good naturalists. If a lap- 
 wing gets up and screams in the darkness they know 
 how to interpret the sound, as also a hare rushing 
 wildly past. It must be confessed, however, that 
 at all points the fish-poacher is cleverer and of 
 readier wit than the river-watcher.
 
 XVI. 
 
 EPHEMERAE. 
 
 OF all nature's beautiful objects submitted to 
 the plyer of the contemplative art, perhaps 
 none are so surpassingly beautiful, or have more 
 exquisite form and colour than the gauzy-winged 
 flies which afford food to the pink-spotted trout. 
 Every one of the angler's months from dry 
 March to sodden October brings its own flies, 
 all more or less delectable to the denizens of 
 the streams. We say " more or less " because 
 the fisherman regulates his likes and dislikes 
 by those of the trout, and praises most the fly 
 that the fishes have already passed their verdict 
 upon. Here, for instance, is the black alder. 
 "What shall be said of this queen of flies ? O, 
 thou beloved member of the brute creation ! 
 Songs have been written in praise of thee ; statues 
 would ere now have been erected to thee had 
 that haunchback, and those flabby wings of thine, 
 been 'susceptible of artistic treatment.' But ugly
 
 EPHEMERAE. 131 
 
 thou art in the eyes of the uninitiated vulgar ; a 
 little, stumpy old maid, toddling about the world 
 in a black bonnet and a brown cloak, laughed at 
 by naughty boys, but doing good wherever thou 
 comest, and leaving sweet memories behind thee ; 
 so sweet that the trout will rise at the ghost or 
 sham of thee, for pure love of thy past kindnesses 
 to them, months after thou hast departed from 
 this sublunary sphere. What hours of bliss do I 
 not owe to thee ! How often have I seen in the 
 rich meads of Wey, after picking out wretched 
 quarter-pounders all the morning on March- 
 brown and red-hackle, the great trout rush from 
 every hover to welcome thy first appearance 
 among the sedges and buttercups ! How often, 
 late in August, on Thames, on Test, on 
 Lodden heads, have I seen the three and four- 
 pound fish prefer thy dead image to any live 
 reality . . . and the great trout rose and rose, 
 and would not cease, at thee, my alder fly ! 
 Have I not seen, after a day when the earth 
 below was iron, and the heavens above as brass, 
 that the three-pounders would have thee, and 
 thee alone, in the purple August dusk, and old 
 Moody 's red face grow redder and redder with 
 excitement, half proud at having advised me to 
 ' put on ' thee. . . . Beloved alder fly ! would 
 that I could give thee a soul (if, indeed, thou hast 
 
 K 2
 
 132 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 not one already, thou and all things which live), 
 and make thee happy in all ceons to come ! But 
 as it is, such immortality as I can bestow on thee 
 here is small return for all the pleasant days thou 
 hast bestowed on me." 
 
 That which Kingsley here expresses for the 
 black alder is only an echo of what goes forth from 
 the heart of every angler towards a dozen other 
 flies which may happen to be his favourite, or the 
 " killing " fly of his own particular stream. Every 
 fly-fisher has some speciality with which he has per- 
 formed doughty deeds, and how anxiously does he 
 wait for his beloved fly to " come on "! As soon as 
 the warm weather returns, and the trout begin to 
 feed, every month brings its more or less season- 
 able flies. Of these gauzy creatures, which con- 
 stitute the food of trout, there are myriads ; but of 
 course the number of species is comparatively 
 few, and, speaking generally, these are represented 
 by four great families, representing two general 
 classes of flies. The Ephemera are the " up- 
 winged " flies of anglers ; the Phryganea the flat- 
 winged. But with all the myriad water-flies 
 which constitute the bulk of fish food, there are 
 a dozen on most streams which carry the angler 
 right on through the season. Though what " the 
 season " means in particular districts only the 
 angler knows. What will kill in one place in
 
 EPHEMERA. 133 
 
 April does not come on elsewhere till June, or in 
 a third locality is over by the middle of March. 
 On the Greenwash, for instance, at the opening of 
 the season the successful flies used are the duns, 
 dressed from light and dark snipe, with sometimes 
 starling and dotterel. The famous " March- 
 browns " float down-stream later than their name 
 would imply, and one of the best of all lures, the 
 May-fly (represented in the north by the stone- 
 fly), does not make its appearance till June, or 
 sometimes July. April and May, if soft and 
 bright, usually present the greatest number of 
 flies, these sometimes seeming to cover the surface 
 of the stream. And here among the grasses and 
 water-avens you might say of a dozen species as 
 has been said of one : 
 
 You find her out on every stalk, 
 Whene'er you take a river walk, 
 When swifts at eve begin to hawk. 
 
 There are duns of every form and colour 
 gnats and willow-flies, and creepers among the 
 pebbles; and insects, insects everywhere. You can 
 put aside your rod, and lie down among the lush 
 summer grass, and examine them at your leisure. 
 The mechanism of each is wonderful, and all are 
 beautiful. But by carefully observing, you are 
 instantly aroused as what angler would not be ?
 
 134 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 "for is not the green drake on?" asks Kingsley ; 
 " and while he reigns, all hours, meals, decencies, 
 and respectabilities must yield to his caprice. 
 See, here he sits, or rather tens of thousands of 
 him, one on each stalk of grass, green drake, 
 yellow drake, brown drake, white drake, each 
 with his gauzy wings folded on his back, waiting 
 for some unknown change of temperature, or 
 something else, in the afternoon, to wake him 
 from his sleep and send him fluttering over the 
 stream ; while overhead the black drake, who has 
 changed his skin and reproduced his species, 
 dances in the sunshine, empty, hard, and happy." 
 
 " For no one will eat him, he well doth know."
 
 XVII. 
 
 A KING AMONG ANGLERS. 
 
 WILSON settled at Elleray immediately upon the 
 close of his brilliant career at Oxford. He seems 
 to have sought out this spot as one in which his 
 whole pure animalism could have full play. And 
 truly he found a fitting environment for a noble 
 mind. Elleray hangs upon one of the slopes of 
 Windermere, and commands a prospect which 
 is perhaps without a parallel in Britain. Im- 
 mediately below lies the river-lake ; the rich fore- 
 grounds are of quiet, exquisite beauty ; at the 
 head of the valley the great mountains lock in 
 the landscape ; and finally there is the sense of 
 aerial sublimity which every one has felt who has 
 stood by the cottage. Elleray was literally a 
 cottage when Wilson found it lichen-covered and 
 overhung by a fine old sycamore. He loved this 
 tree, and in his writings frequently alludes to 
 it : " Never in this well-wooded world, not even 
 in the days of the Druids, could there have been
 
 136 'BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 such another tree ! It would be easier to sup- 
 pose two Shakespeares." Wilson probably found 
 at Elleray what he sought. He tramped among 
 the mountains; he, fished; he -boated with his 
 favourite " Billy Balmer" on the lake ; he tended 
 his game birds and fought mains ; and he certainly 
 indulged in many boisterous pleasures. The 
 presence of " the Lakers," as Byron irreverently 
 dubbed them, might be some inducement to 
 Wilson, as they certainly had influence as his 
 neighbours. Wordsworth was at Rydal, Southey 
 and Coleridge at Keswick, De Quincey with 
 Wordsworth, and besides these there were other 
 lesser lights. Strange as it may appear, there 
 was a good deal in common between these 
 men, and they were frequently at each other's 
 houses. Allanbank, the house which Words- 
 worth occupied after his return from Colerton, 
 was a common resort ; and whilst here as the 
 guest of Wordsworth Wilson made the ac- 
 quaintance of both Coleridge and De Quincey. 
 At this time all of them were young, and 
 would seem to have had an intense enjoyment 
 of life. Excursions among the mountains were 
 their chief pursuits, and one of these became 
 memorable. This was an invasion of soli- 
 tary Eskdale by a little army of anglers, with 
 tents and baggage for a week's sojourn. It
 
 A KING AMONG ANGLERS. 137 
 
 formed the theme of the " Angler's Tent," one 
 of Wilson's minor poems, a line of which caused 
 considerable discussion among the party. The 
 
 last of these lines was the awkward one. and it 
 
 % 
 
 was left as shaped by Wordsworth : 
 
 The placid lake that rested far below, 
 Softly embosoming another sky. 
 
 A touching incident connected with these 
 mountain rambles was to form the subject of a 
 -poem by Wilson ; but it was never fulfilled. 
 Wordsworth had a younger brother, who went to 
 sea. Upon one occasion, after a visit home, the 
 poet set out with this brother across the hills, on 
 his way to rejoin his ship. Before parting, the two 
 sat down by Red Tarn, beneath Helvellyn, and 
 talked over future plans of happiness when next 
 they should meet. They also agreed to then and 
 there lay the foundation-stone of a little nshing- 
 hut ; and this was done. The brother was sub- 
 sequently drowned at sea, and Wordsworth 
 afterwards related the incident as stated. 
 
 At this time, boating was one of Wilson's great 
 diversions, and he kept quite a fleet of sailing 
 smacks on Windermere. Although the lake is ex- 
 ceedingly treacherous, he and his henchman often 
 started for it at midnight, and had many escapades. 
 Another slight adventure in connection with the 
 lake is worth recounting. Riding one day by
 
 138 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 Rydal Water, Wilson's horse became restive, and 
 to quiet it he turned its head to the lake, intend- 
 ing to cool its ardour among the oozy reeds. 
 Soon, however, both man and horse were plunged 
 beyond their depth, when the latter commenced 
 to cross. His friend's horse followed the lead, 
 and both made the passage in safety. Another 
 midnight escapade may be set down, as it was 
 one which he dearly loved and frequently indulged. 
 Soon after De Quincey came to reside in the 
 Lake District, he describes how he was out at 
 dawn on a summer morning, when he saw a 
 cavalcade of six horsemen enveloped in dust come 
 sweeping down the road. In front was a huge 
 beast, advancing at a long trot, and experiencing 
 great difficulty in navigating his unwieldy bulk. 
 The beast is a bull, and as the flying horsemen 
 come nearer, each is seen to be armed with a 
 spear fourteen feet long. The bull gains a rocky 
 eminence, and stands bellowing and blowing 
 clouds of smoke from his nostril. Soon, however, 
 he is dislodged, and, with the hunters at his tail, 
 goes scouring to the plain below. After a struggle 
 in the morass of the lake, lasting a quarter of an 
 hour, and when the bull again seeks higher 
 ground, Wilson yells: "Turn the villain; turn that 
 villain, or he will take to Cumberland ; " and De 
 Quincey, having performed the office requested,
 
 A KING AMONG ANGLERS. 139 
 
 soon loses the stampeders round a bend of the 
 road. The bull was not unfrequently turned out 
 at midnight for a fifteen mile burst, and, it is 
 said, became quite used to the nightly visitation. 
 
 At Oxford, where was a famous cockpit, 
 Wilson was one of the great "cockers" of his 
 time. At Elleray his game birds engrossed as 
 much time as his boats ; and in his walks abroad 
 he usually carried a game-cock under his arm, 
 to pit against those of his neighbours. It is 
 even reported upon trustworthy evidence, that 
 the Professor indulged in the pastime in his 
 drawing-room on Sunday afternoons, and we know 
 that he did so upon one memorable week-day. 
 In his diary are frequent reminders of the sport. 
 Thus : " Black Edinburgh hen set on Tuesday, 
 the 23rd of June, with twelve eggs middle of the 
 day. Sister to the above was set with five eggs 
 on Thursday, but they had been sat upon a day 
 or two before." And side by side with some 
 beautiful lines from the " Isle of Palms " is ranged 
 * ( a list of cocks for a main with W. and T.," and 
 then comes " Lord Derby," " Caradice," and the 
 rest of them. Wilson kept only the purest game- 
 fowl, and bred from the best fighting strains in the 
 country. Although this erstwhile moral philo- 
 sopher was a keen cock-fighter, he was eminently 
 kind and gentle to animals in general. There
 
 140 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 was not a dumb creature about Elleray but what 
 he had knowledge of and became friends with. 
 He was a keen sportsman, a good naturalist, 
 and of birds he has written some of the best 
 descriptions in the language. It is true that in 
 his outdoor sketches there is but little of the 
 " pretty upholstery of nature," as regards dorsal 
 fins and tail feathers, but each subject he describes 
 is essentially a wild creature in its haunts. 
 " Christopher North," in his sporting jacket, was 
 a familiar figure on the moors, and but few of 
 his friends could tramp through the heather so 
 long or with such success. He was as skilful with 
 the gun as with the rod, and flogging the trout 
 streams in spring was among his chiefest delights. 
 There were none of the old-fashioned country 
 sports in which Wilson did not indulge, and in all 
 he himself was a proficient. If he did not sport his 
 figure in the ring, he attended at all the annual 
 wrestlings, and gave prizes and belts to the com- 
 petitors. He was not slow to show his strength 
 and prowess in private, and the yeomen and 
 farmers were often treated to an exhibition of his 
 skill. He threw some of the champion wrestlers 
 of the time ; and was also a clever boxer. Anent 
 the repute in which wrestling was held, Wilson 
 tells how a political friend of his, a staunch fellow, 
 in passing through the Lakes, heard of nothing
 
 A KING AMONG ANGLERS. 141 
 
 but the contest for the county, and which he 
 understood would lie between Lord Lowther (the 
 sitting member) and Mr. Brougham. But, to his 
 sore perplexity, he heard the names of new candi- 
 dates, to him hitherto unknown. And on meeting 
 Wilson, he told him with a serious countenance 
 that Lord Lowther would be ousted, for that the 
 struggle, so far as he could learn, would ultimately 
 be between Thomas Ford, of Egremont, and 
 William Richardson, of Caldbeck, men of no 
 landed property, and probably Radicals. This 
 contest was at Carlisle, and had no political com- 
 plexion whatever. 
 
 One of the great resorts of the literary coterie 
 of the Lakes during Wilson's time was the little 
 mountain inn at Wastdale Head, kept by the 
 Tysons. Upon one occasion the Professor pro- 
 posed a sail on Wastwater, and when well into 
 the middle of the tarn he fell overboard. 
 There was great consternation in the boat, 
 and first one and then another made a grab 
 at him, though to the peril of every one in the 
 tub. Wilson could not restrain his laughter, 
 however, as he was pulled aboard, and the 
 rescuers found that one more prank had been 
 played upon them. Old Tyson describes Wilson 
 as a "fine, gay, girt-hearted fellow, as strang as 
 a lion, an' as lish as a troot, an' he hed sic antics
 
 142 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
 
 as nivver man bed." Then he describes a 
 merry night at Wastdale, and how, upon the 
 parson coming in, " North " made a song about 
 him. " He med it reight off o' t' stick end. He 
 began wi' t' parson first, then he gat t' Pope, 
 an' then he turned it t' devil. T' parson was 
 quite astonished, an' rayder vex't an' all, but at 
 last he burst out laughin' wi' t' rest. He was 
 like. Naabody could stand it." Wilson was 
 fond of attending the country balls in the Lake 
 District, and especially such as were patronised 
 by a Miss Jane Penny. This lady was " the 
 anchor," as he expressed it, without whom " he 
 should keep beating about the great sea of life 
 to very little purpose." 
 
 Wilson's love of angling went with him to 
 the end. How touching is this picture, drawn 
 by his daughter, when only a few days remained 
 to him on earth ! Although broken in body, 
 his spirit went back to the mountain streams 
 whence he had so often drawn the pink-spotted 
 trout : " Certain it was the ' mearns ' came among 
 those waking dreams, and then he gathered 
 around him, when the spring mornings brought 
 gay jets of sunshine into the little room where 
 he lay, the relics of a youthful passion, one that 
 with him never grew old. It was an affecting 
 sight to see him busy, nay, quite absorbed, with
 
 A KING AMONG ANGLERS. 143 
 
 the fishing-tackle scattered about his bed, propped 
 up with pillows his noble head, yet glorious with 
 its flowing locks, carefully combed by attentive 
 hands, and falling on each side of his unfaded 
 face. How neatly he picked out each elegantly 
 dressed fly from its little bunch, drawing it out 
 with trembling hand along the white coverlet, 
 and then replacing it in his pocket-book, he 
 would tell ever and anon of the streams he 
 used to fish in of old, and of the deeds he had 
 performed in his childhood and youth. These 
 precious relics of a bygone sport were wont to 
 be brought out in the early spring, long before 
 sickness confined him to his room. It had been 
 a habit of many years, but then the ' sporting 
 jacket ' was donned soon after, and angling was 
 no more a mere delightful day-dream, but a 
 reality, ' that took him knee-deep, or waistband- 
 high, through river-feeding torrents, to the glorious 
 music of his running and ringing reel.' ' 
 
 CHARLBS DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.
 
 SYLVAN FOLK. 
 
 By JOHN WATSON. 
 
 "A charming \X>Q\L.^ -^-Sheffield Independent. 
 
 ' ' Written by a born- naturalist. " Daily News. ^ 
 
 "Such a book as will astonish and delight unfortunate dwellers 
 in cities." Liverpool Daily Post. 
 
 " Whoever admires Jefferies lover of Nature, or lover of sport 
 will admire 'Sylvan Folk.'" Land and Water. 
 
 "Full of delicate description as enchanting as a fairy tale. Dull 
 indeed must be the reader who is insensible to its delightful charm." 
 Manchester Examiner. 
 
 " It reminds us of Richard Jefferies ;" and indeed it may be placed 
 on the same shelf with that of the greatest of all writers on English 
 rural life." Christian Leader. 
 
 ' ' Richard Jefferies' mantle has fallen on John Watson's shoulders. 
 May he long be spared to give us other books as true to nature and 
 as charmingly written as 'Sylvan Folk.'" Guardian. 
 
 " It is this freshness, this outdoor atmosphere, that leads the reader 
 along in fascinated interest from the first to the last page." Literary 
 World. 
 
 " Pages of authority for all who angle or who shoot, who 
 find their delight in the wood, their ecstasy on the moor, or their 
 heaven upon earth at the waterside." Rod and Gun. 
 
 " His descriptions are so fresh they suggest so vividly the idea 
 of happy hours spent among attractive scenes in the open air that 
 they will give genuine pleasure to every one who reads them." Nature. 
 
 " A sympathetic, keen-eyed, worshipful observer of Nature, Mr. 
 Watson writes with the simplicity and directness of a man who knows 
 what he is about. There is not an uninteresting page in ' Sylvan Folk ' 
 from first to last." Echo. 
 
 "As we had occasion to speak favourably of Mr. Watson's 'A 
 Year in the Fields,' it gives us much pleasure to say that his new book 
 is in every sense worthy of it, and of the reputation which it brought 
 its author." Spectator. 
 
 THE LIUKAK1 
 
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