ENGLAND AND WALES. 301 



cerned, the eminent injustice and impolicy of shutting 

 up extensive rivers, and preserving large sheets of water 

 from the fair sportsman, is still more glaring and con- 

 spicuous, when it is considered that half these pet-waters 

 communicate with some public river, from which they 

 are constantly supplied with fish. Over these public 

 rivers, whence they have derived nearly all the fish they 

 are so tenacious about, these eager preservers never 

 attempt to exercise that legitimate control which none 

 could blame, and which would prevent the illegal and 

 shameful destruction of fish which is annually effected 

 in England by the use of large drag-nets, with meshes 

 far smaller than the law allows, and by the abominable 

 practice of working them during the fence months as 

 freely as at other periods of the year. In that part of 

 the river Witham, for instance, which flows from the 

 city of Lincoln to the sea, this sort of practice has 

 prevailed for some years; and its waters are nearly 

 emptied of fish. Pike, for which this river had a 

 national celebrity, are now seldom to be met with. 

 Perch of any size are a rarity; roach and dace are fast 

 disappearing; bleak have nearly gone; and eels, even, 

 which thrive anywhere, and everywhere, and seem to 

 defy every process of extirpation, are very seldom taken 

 above the thickness of one's finger, except in a strong 

 flood, when they run down to the sea with the falling 

 waters. Most of the open rivers in England are in 

 a similar predicament; and, therefore, what with the 

 preserving of private streams and waters, and the non- 

 preserving of public rivers, the angler's occupation is 

 undoubtedly on the wane; and, in all probability, unless 

 a change take place very speedily, will soon be gone 

 altogether. 



