Manchester Memoirs^ Vol. liii. (1909), No. 11. 



XL A Preliminary Account of the Submerged Vege- 

 tation of Lake Windermere as affecting the 

 Feeding Ground of Fish. 



By Professor F. E. Weiss, D.Sc, F.L.S. 



Received and read February 2jrd, jgog. 



Mr. Francis Nicholson, of the Windermere and District 

 Angling Association, has drawn my attention to the fact 

 that several of the shallow bays of Lake Windermere 

 have of late years become filled with various aquatic 

 plants, which have interfered considerably with the fishing 

 in that district. These gravelly reaches of the lake are 

 the natural feeding ground for trout and other fish, and 

 when covered with a rank vegetation, the fish are unable 

 to get at the worms and other animal organisms, and are 

 therefore driven to seek their food in the deeper water of 

 the lake, where they fall a prey to their enemy the pike 

 and the larger trout. Not only is the number of trout 

 thereby reduced, but the absence of fish from the shallow 

 water considerably limits the possibility of fly-fishing, 

 which should be best in these parts of the lake, for in 

 deep water the trout are practically only caught by 

 trolling. 



The efforts of the Angling Association to improve the 

 fly-fishing in Windermere, by turning into the lake many 

 thousands of yearling and two-year-old fish of local and 

 foreign strain, have therefore been checkmated by the de- 

 terioration of the feeding grounds for these young fish and 

 their consequent destruction by their voracious enemies. 



It seemed, therefore, important to examine the vege- 

 tation which is filling up the bays in question, and to find 



Apri/ 7th, igog. 



