178 AN OPEN CREEL 



them, principally snails, caddis, and flies. The water 

 is so rich that only a small quantity of artificial food 

 need be given to the fish. Indeed, a good many ponds 

 are now devoted to yearlings and two-year-olds which 

 are not fed at all, but get their living naturally. This 

 does not seem to hinder the growth of the fish, and its 

 advantages are many and obvious. A trout which has 

 always had to forage for itself takes much more kindly 

 to a new water than one which has been liberally fed 

 by hand. I have seen so many instances of large 

 hand-fed fish going sadly out of condition when put 

 into a river to get their own living that I think the 

 trout which has always had to get its own living is the 

 stock fish of the future. The difficulty from the fish- 

 culturist's point of view is that such fish require much 

 more pond space. Mr. Severn told me the sad history 

 of the "last of the Mohicans," or rather of the New- 

 Zealanders, of which he managed to hatch out a few 

 from the first consignment which came to England a few 

 years ago, and met with such bad luck. Most of them 

 were deformed, but one survived and grew grew 

 mightily, as he accidentally got into a supplementary 

 fry pond and lived on its inhabitants. When the pond 

 was ultimately run off he was found stranded and dead, 

 a prodigious yearling. C&lum non animam mutant qui 

 trans mare currunt ! 



The richness of the Coin water accounts for the fact 

 that it can hold so many fish of good size in so small 

 a compass. Above Bibury the river is really little more 

 than a brook, but during a delightful day on the water 

 so charmingly described in " A Cotswold Village " I 

 was forced to the conclusion that I should have made 



