NEW WATERS 271 



it is the breeding that one most liopes for. Once 

 it has come about that a stream can every year 

 show a certain number of indigenous fry, it may be 

 assumed that everything is going well. Artificial 

 stocking may still perhaps be caiTied on with advan- 

 tage if there is a good deal of fishing, but one has 

 the comfortable assurance that the new fish, if 

 they survive the rods, will settle down as useful 

 naturalised citizens of the community into which 

 they have come. 



One of the most interesting experiments in making 

 a trout stream which I have had the opportunity 

 of studying was carried out on a little river in the 

 Home Counties a few years ago. It was one of 

 those neglected waters which had been given over 

 to small coarse fish, probably because no one ever 

 thought it would be fit for anything else. A group 

 of friends, however, had the luck to stumble on it 

 as they stepped out of London (so to speak) one 

 day, cast a discriminating eye upon it, and divined 

 that though then practically derelict it was capable 

 of serving worthy purposes, among them that of 

 supplying hard-worked people with trout fishing 

 at a very small outlay of time in travelling. Doubt- 

 less they were influenced by the fact that the brook 

 — it is little more than that — ran through a delight- 

 ful valley of its own, with downs swelling up on 

 either side, and with plenty of boskage all about 



