10 LARGE FISH SHOULD BE REMOVED. 



Where gentlemen desire to have a good and useful fish- 

 ery, it is impolitic to allow the stream to become overstocked 

 with heavy fish, that is to say, where migration does not 

 take place, as large fish devour far more in proportion 

 than the smaller ones, and constantly hunt and harass 

 them, and hinder them from obtaining food. On this ac- 

 count, where many exist, the fishery is not upon a fail- 

 footing, and certainly not in a progressive or prosperous 

 state. It were better that large fish, after a certain age, 

 should be taken for food, or else removed for productive 

 purposes elsewhere. 



Many fishermen have doubted two things which I have 

 advanced, but which I have been able positively to prove : 

 namely, that certain kinds of fish, and especially the male, 

 will devour the egg and the young fry as they come forth 

 from the hill, and will fight hard to keep their prey 

 to themselves. One of these interesting proofs was ex- 

 hibited a few months since in the fishery which I have 

 superintended for six years, and which is now the richest 

 stream in the south of England. Even one of the fisher- 

 men belonging to the estate could not be brought to believe 

 it, till on one occasion he was made an unwilling witness of 

 the plundering habits of a trout which he captured, and 

 which proved to be a male fish of about two pounds weight. 

 In order to prove to demonstration the destructive effects 

 of the deposits of a river when its waters become impure, I 



