CHAPTER II 



THE TROUT STREAM ; ITS PAST, PRESENT, AND 



FUTURE 



The boast of Tennyson's brook 



" For men may come and men may go, 

 But I go on for ever " 



might seem a bold one for some of our trout 

 streams to make to-day, at least for those which 

 are gradually being closed in upon by inevitable 

 brick and mortar progress ; by the builder, the 

 manufacturer, and the water company. One need 

 hardly go back to the time when Notting Hill 

 was a forest and Finsbury a fen to trace the 

 pleasant little river Tyburn flowing from its rise 

 near the Swiss Cottage through Regent's Park in 

 almost a line with what is now — New Bond Street ! 

 Nor is the Tyburn the only stream that has 

 " vanished tone and tint " from the map of England. 

 Was there not the Fleet river, famed for its high 

 banks, which took its rise at Hampstead ^ and can 

 you really recognise without an effort in the grimy 

 and long since fish-less lower Wandle of to-day the 

 ** Wandsworth River" of which a writer in the first 

 quarter of this century speaks, a river containing 



