Water Poachers. 165 



ance they are elastic and capable of sustaining 

 great pressure, and an egg thrown upon a flat 

 surface will rebound like an india-rubber ball. 

 The economy of the extreme prolificness of the 

 sporting fishes of Britain can best be understood 

 when we come to consider the host of enemies 

 which beset both salmon and trout in the very first 

 stages of their existence. Nature is prolific in her 

 waste, and a whole army of nature's poachers 

 have to be satisfied. So true is this that the 

 yearly yield of the largest salmon-producing 

 river in the kingdom is computed at about the 

 produce of one female fish of from fifteen pounds 

 to twenty pounds in weight ; the produce of all 

 the rest being lost or wasted. Sometimes a 

 single ill-timed spate will destroy millions of eggs 

 by tearing them from the gravel and laying them 

 bare to a whole host of enemies.* These 



* "Sometimes while stealing along in a quiet deep channel but 

 a few yards wide, worn through the rock, or between it and the 

 green bank opposite, the spectator would marvel at the broad 

 expanse of shingle or barren sand. Little would he wonder if, 

 after a week's rain, he sought the same spot, when Tweed was 

 coming down in his might, and every tributary stream, trans- 

 formed for the nonce into a river, swelled the mighty flood. 

 Then timber trees, sawn wood, dead animals, farming imple- 

 ments, even haystacks would come floating down, and the very 

 channel of the river would be diverted, sometimes never to 

 return to its ancient course. Sad was the havoc occasioned 

 among the embryo spawn; torn from its bed, it would be 

 carried down stream, to be devoured by the trout or the eel, or 



