i8 SOUTH COUNTRY TROUT STREAMS 



trout streams and the verdicts have been exactly 

 as the angler would have wished. To single out 

 two instances in point. There was the case of 

 polluting the Darcnth of Kent, close to Dartford, 

 a deadly pollution by powder mills bleach which 

 destroyed numbers of good trout, and the pollu- 

 tion of the Anton of Hampshire by Andover 

 sewage, which made up in abomination what it 

 may have lacked in deadliness. In both these 

 cases the law was interpreted against the polluters, 

 and as a consequence the Darenth trout still thrive 

 and when hooked fight as game as most, while the 

 Anton will again be sweet and pure. 



Unfortunately it is not by any means always 

 practical to prove an infringement of the Rivers 

 Pollution Act of 1876, or to go to law at all. 

 Pollution may be of a much more insidious and 

 occasional character than in the cases just men- 

 tioned, and the evil may be more widely distributed 

 and therefore much less easy to check by one de- 

 cided blow. I candidly admit that the number of 

 cases of fine trout streams in various parts of the 

 south of England more or less polluted, which have 

 come to my knowledge since I have undertaken 

 this little work, has filled me with surprise. The 

 Buckinghamshire Chess itself, which I always used 

 to regard as one of the purest and least tainted 

 of chalk streams, is not free from the reproach ; 

 the peaceful little Hampshire Arle or Meon has not 

 escaped ; while the Colne, long before it reaches 

 the Thames, and where it still is — or should be — a 

 genuine trout stream, has suffered and is suffering 

 grievously. One is inclined to think that the 

 deliberate poisoning or pollution of a trout stream 

 IS always a crime against nature as well as an 



