PERILS OF SPAWNING FISH 29 



they are very easily secured by poachers and such 

 unscrupulous folk, for they are so intent upon 

 the business they have in hand as to be easily 

 approached, and if they are scared for the time 

 will very quickly return and play about in an all 

 too confident manner. 



Those fish which eventually elect to thread 

 their way up the smaller streams and ditches, as 

 a great number do, are very much at the mercy* 

 of any evil-disposed person ; and where rivers are 

 not carefully watched, numberless fish are poached 

 out. At times these small streams and ditches 

 run dry, and the wretched fish are helplessly 

 stranded. 



Where the spawning-beds are insufficient or 

 unsuitable, the inducement for fish to leave the 

 main river is very considerably increased, and the 

 small side-streams in which the flow of water may 

 be fairly constant, and which can be well watched, 

 are an advantage to a river, for such not only form 

 quiet, suitable spawning places, but it is ever at 

 the mouths of these streams, where they enter the 

 main river, that the best fish are to be caught 

 during the season. 



In districts where there are water-meadows, 

 unless the water-keepers are on the alert, the 

 trout are apt to suffer considerably from the mal- 

 practices of the individuals called ' water-drowners,' 

 who have charge of the various hatches, for these 



