Water Poachers. 169 



on the " redds" during the breeding season. 

 We have more than once shot moorhens in 

 autumn with spawn dripping from their bills, and 

 the birds themselves gorged with it. The coot 

 has been charged with the same crime, though 

 as yet guilt has only been brought home to it 

 with regard to coarse fish ; and to the silvery 

 bleak it is said to be particularly partial. The 

 grebe or dabchick must be looked upon as an 

 arrant little poacher not only of eggs and fry 

 but of fish in every stage of growth. It is said 

 that a pair of dabchicks will do more harm on 

 a river than a pair of otters, which, however, 

 is perhaps not so terrible as it sounds. Four- 

 teen little grebes fishing about a mile of trout 

 stream, as we have known, is overstepping 

 the balance of nature, and would certainly injure 

 the river ; and Mr. Bartlett has stated that a pair 

 of these birds which he kept in confinement cost 

 the Zoological Society a considerable sum in 

 providing small fish for them. Frank Buckland 



work at the spawn, and give them only a fortnight for the period 

 of their ravages. Now what is the result we get ? Why, a 

 little total of one hundred and forty million. One hundred and 

 forty million of eggs ! Suppose only half of those eggs to be- 

 come fish, and we have a loss of seventy millions of fish every 

 year to the River Thames a heavy price to pay for the pictur- 

 esque, particularly when the reality may perhaps be doubled, or 

 trebled, or even quadrupled." Francis Francis. 



