An Angler's Paradise. 47 



in a comparatively short space of time, should it happen to 

 succeed in gaining admission to a trout culturist's nursery ponds. 

 The eel is one of our greatest enemies, but his depredations in 

 natural waters are very much overlooked. When he gets on to 

 a fish farm, however, he soon lessens the number of fish, if not 

 destroyed. 



A correspondent wrote to me this year, that he had lost a 

 large percentage of his yearlings, owing to some eels getting into 

 his ponds. I read in a book recently received from New Zealand, 

 that "ninety rainbow trout were put into a large rearing box, 

 with wire netting lids. These fish were growing splendidly, when 

 some visitors to the ponds lifting one of the lids, and leaving it off, 

 a large eel got into the box, and when discovered next morning 

 its stomach was packed with nearly all this valuable fry, leaving 

 only twelve alive." Such lessons as these should not be lost 

 sight of. 



During the last few years, the facility for visiting the 

 magnificent scenery of the Lake District has been so much 

 increased, that many parts of it are now very accessible to the 

 tourist, and there is a great opening for the development of its 

 waters, which did not before exist. No part of the world perhaps 

 possesses so many charms for the contemplative mind. It would 

 be difficult to find one which can provide so wide a field for the 

 imaginations of the poet or for the legendary fancier, or such a 

 charming variety of tint and landscape for the artist, as the lovely 

 glens and varied hill-sides of this beautiful country. The lover of 

 nature invariably finds much to delight him in this romantic 

 region, and why, now that we have the power in our hands of 

 dealing with the water, should it not be improved, so that it may 

 be in the future more than ever it has been in the past, in the 

 highest sense of the word "An Angler's Paradise." 



