PISCICULTURE AND NATURAL HISTORY 107 



be. The locality of the rise of each river should be 

 considered, as well as the rise of each of its tributaries. 

 The snowfall and the meteorological circumstances of each 

 season should be carefully considered twice a year, and any 

 hard-and-fast period selected for the opening and closing of 

 the trout-fishing season should therefore be modified by the 

 peculiar circumstances of each river and each season. 

 Trout fishing can be legally pursued between February ist 

 and October 2nd, except in those districts in which the con- 

 servators have wisely extended the length of the close season. 

 It is unnatural, foolish, and unsportsmanlike, to permit 

 fishing during periods in which ill-conditioned fish can be 

 caught ; but at the present time many rivers are deprived 

 every season of a considerable quantity of ova, and suffer the 

 loss of many ill-conditioned fish owing to an insufficiently 

 extended close time. For these reasons alone it is advis- 

 able that the close season in many districts should be still 

 further extended. Many of the March fish caught in the 

 Welsh rivers during a hard spring, for instance, are as unfit 

 for human food as is the salmon-kelt. The fish on the first 

 warm day are ravenous, and at such times they will take 

 any bait, no matter how unskilfully it may be offered to 

 them. As a natural consequence, the rivers lose many of 

 their best fish before the latter are in a condition either 

 to discriminate as to the choice of their food, or to have a 

 sporting chance of successfully fighting for their lives, to say 

 nothing of their being in such cases quite unfit for food. 



THE BOARD OF CONSERVATORS 



The opening of the trout-fishing season is regulated 

 by the fishery conservators, and if the gentlemen controlling 

 these associations could only be induced, in the interests 

 of the rivers they control, to consider the causes which lead 

 to the depopulated condition of certain rivers in June and 



