470 SALMON AND TROUT. 



difficulty in breeding grayling artificially than was formerly 

 supposed. The principal risk is owing to their spawning 

 operations being got through in such a short time. If the 

 right day is missed, the fish may have finished, and no ova 

 can be obtained. Young grayling can be reared in nursery 

 ponds with as little trouble as trout, and they thrive on exactly 

 the same food. 



It remains to give a caution against over-stocking, which, as 

 a practical writer truly observes, will produce ' a sort of perma- 

 nent famine.' A stream should never be fully up to its possible 

 * limit in regard to stock, a little under will give you bigger and 

 better fish.' At the same time it is an undoubted fact, that 

 there are very many waters which (if managed properly) would 

 contain with perfect safety ten times the number of fish they 

 now do. 



Let me, in conclusion, draw attention to some of the 

 enemies of trout. 



In the natural state the parent fish devour the ova as 

 soon as it is deposited. I once saw a pair of Fontinalis about 

 four pounds each on the spawning beds, and watched them 

 for some minutes. Every time the female deposited a few 

 eggs, both she and her ' consort ' turned round and devoured 

 them instantly. Yearlings and older fish lurk in the vicinity 

 of the spawning grounds, and devour every egg they can find. 

 Swans, 1 geese, wild and tame ducks, moor-hens, dab-chicks, 

 cootes, cattle and rats, rout about the spawning beds, and 

 the later spawning fish disturb the ' redds ' previously made. 

 Nature is bountiful enough to provide for considerable waste, 

 but this is no reason why art should not step in and reclaim it. 

 It is only in places possessing a very large extent of natural 

 spawning and rearing ground that any great number of store 

 fish are to be found. In some of the finest reaches of water 

 one sees but a few dozen yearlings to replenish the river by- 

 and-bye ; the natural consequence ot this being, that in two or 



1 A swan will devour the best part of a gallon of tro.it ova in a day, say, 

 40,000 eggs. 



