300 SALMON AND TROUT. 



surmount obstacles and profit by opportunities in the filling of 

 his creel. But as the number and the skill of our fly fishers 

 are continually increasing, the question still remains how the 

 breed of British Salmonidce can be kept up to meet the grow- 

 ing demand. Every true brother of the angle who pursues his 

 pastime in a liberal and unselfish spirit ought, therefore, to 

 direct his attention to the breeding and feeding of these fish, 

 valuable as they are at once for sport and for the table. And 

 it is important at the outset to draw attention to some condi- 

 tions of this twofold problem which seem to be but imperfectly 

 understood. 



In the first place, the fact must be recognised that it is 

 easier to keep up the number than the size of the trout in our 

 best streams. Modern agriculture with its demand for thorough 

 drainage tends to diminish the ordinary volume of water in our 

 brooks and rivers. Fifty years ago, when there came a heavy 

 spell of wet weather a great extent of spongy moor and meadow 

 land along the watercourses imbibed and held up a large pro- 

 portion of the rainfall. The spate came less suddenly and 

 lasted longer, and in ordinary weather the banks continually 

 gave out water to keep up the stream. Now it is either ' a 

 feast or a fast.' The well-laid drains flush the rain water 

 rapidly into the streams ; the floods come down sooner and 

 last for a shorter time, and the ordinary level of four-fifths of 

 our trout rivers is very much below what it used to be when 

 agriculture, though more thriving, was less scientific. 



This diminution in the volume of water means, of course, a 

 reduced supply of insect food for our trout. Nor is this all. 

 Farmers and millers combine in many districts to keep the 

 weeds close cut, and every weed-cutting destroys by wholesale 

 the larvae of those insects on which the trout depends most for 

 his ordinary food. As I walk along some well-known beck and 

 see huge heaps of water weed drying in the sun, I feel sorely 

 tempted to use a naughty word when I think of the millions of 

 possible Ephemera which have ' closed their little being without 

 life,' hopelessly entangled in the ruins of their green abodes. 



