ENGLAND AND WALES 231 



until, with excessive netting in the summer, and 

 poaching in the winter on the spawning beds, it 

 seemed as if the Wye would cease to be a salmon 

 river at all. The Board of Conservators, however, 

 under their able chairman, Mr. J. Hotchkis, have 

 gradually been acquiring the netting rights, and 

 four years ago the nets were taken off a long stretch 

 of the river for three years. The second year after 

 that was wet, and the results were most encouraging 

 in 1902. Some wonderful bags of salmon were made 

 with the rod all over the river. 1903 and 1904 

 were not so good. There was little rain, and the 

 fish came up late. Still, in certain portions of the 

 river the sport was so brisk as to show that immense 

 benefit had been done by the diminution of netting. 

 This last year, 1905, has been an exceptionally bad 

 one here ; but I have heard of some of my neighbours, 

 only a few miles lower, having done well. On 

 the whole, the deterioration of the river in the first 

 instance is due principally to the two causes I have 

 mentioned, excessive netting and excessive poaching 

 on the spawning grounds : few fish that pass above 

 Rhayader ever return to the sea. There are several 

 other causes (1) pollution, (2) loss of water, (3) 

 coarse fish, (4) otters. (1) The Birmingham Corpora- 

 tion have, in making their new reservoirs, introduced 

 an enormous floating populace of between 2000 

 and 3000 men, with their wives, children, and 

 hangers-on. The engineers (to do them justice) 

 stringently forbade anything in the way of refuse 

 being thrown into the river; but the regulations, 



