2Q The Field Naturalist's Quarterly Feb. 



fish returned to the same river, there would be no cause for 

 complaint ; for local fishery boards and committees fix, as 

 prescribed by law, a minimum number of days of rest — 

 ninety-two for rods in England and one hundred and sixty- 

 eight for nets in Scotland. 



Thus, if it were only an ascertained fact that every Salmon 

 returns to the same river, as Swallows are said to return to 

 the same eaves, year after year, we should be quite sure 

 that a sufficient close time was allowed, because, as I say, 

 each board appoints a close time of at any rate three or 

 four months, generally indeed of longer duration, and the 

 fish would have time to recuperate and to recoup. But who 

 knows that a Fowey fish, for instance, does not find its 

 way back to the Avon and Stour, the joint-estuary of which 

 is only a couple of hundred miles or so east of the Cornish 

 stream ? And, if such should be the case, a poor Salmon 

 might only have been grazed by a hook in the Fowey on 

 the last day of November to encounter the nets of the 

 Hampshire licensees again on the second day of the follow- 

 ing February, having thus enjoyed immunity for only two 

 months, a totally inadequate rest. It might, of course, be 

 argued that fish which went down the Fowey in November 

 would not again be in condition to ascend the Avon and 

 Stour in February. Such is probably the correct view, yet 

 the position has none the less an unsatisfactory appearance. 

 I do not exactly see how this possible misfortune is to be 

 remedied, for, as a matter of fact, it would be extremely 

 difficult to appoint a uniform close time for all the rivers 

 of the kingdom that should take into account their varied 

 physical conditions, and this for biological reasons quite 

 apart from the administrative confusion in local bodies with 

 control. Yet it is sometimes of use to point out a grievance 

 in the hope that readier brains may devise the remedy, and 

 with this I must rest content. 



What becomes of fish in winter is always a puzzle to 

 the angler, and I was much struck by a suggestion made 

 in ' Land and Water ' of January 3, by J. Berryman, to the 

 effect that Trout may burrow in the fine gravel of the river- 

 bed. This observer saw a Trout actually so engaged, and 

 he submitted in his account of the episode that the spring 



