THE SUN-PERCH AND THE CATFISH 



more than a pound. But that's almost twenty years 

 ago. There's been a change since then. The river is 

 very different now. There are fewer fish in it, and 

 they're not the same fish." 



" How has that come about ? " the son asked. 

 " These new-comers haven't come without some reason. 

 Something must have given them the opportunity. 

 What was it ? " 



" I know what it was," said the father. " Indeed, 

 I'm partly responsible myself. I've sometimes talked 

 to you about the old friends with whom I used to 



Fig. 38. — European Perch. Usual length between 8 and 16 inches. 



fish and hunt when I was a young man. We're getting 

 on now and we don't often meet in these days, but we 

 used to be very keen, and all we cared about was our 

 sport. There never was enough game or fish for us. 

 And we thought we could improve on Nature, give her 

 a hand, so to speak. It would be enough, we thought, 

 if we put into the water young fry from the breeders, and 

 we should reap a glorious harvest later on. We could 

 already see the streams richer in fish; the smallest brook, 

 we imagined, would be full of fish. And so, like many 

 other people, we set about stocking these waters. 



" Since we ourselves were doing the stocking, we 

 could choose our fry. We fancied that our native fish, 

 which were decreasing in numbers all the time, were 



195 



