254 ENGLISH LAKE DISTRICT FISHERIES 



few minutes in his presence, for he gulps down fish, 

 fungus and all. In this connection there is one fact 

 which ought not to be overlooked. Of late years 

 disease has played terrible havoc in some of the 

 best rivers in the country. In one of these, known 

 to the writer, scarcely a fish is caught which does 

 not show scars left by the disease want of tail, par- 

 tial loss of fins, and white patches where the fungus 

 has previously grown. That numbers of fish do sur- 

 vive there can be no question ; and that the disease 

 may be prevented at the cost of a few fish I have 

 but little doubt. This may be considered a bold 

 assertion ; but in these days of artificial rearing, re- 

 stocking and preservation, anglers and angling as- 

 sociations are apt either to forget or to ignore the 

 balance of nature. Now, nature rarely overlooks 

 an insult. Destroy her appointed instruments and 

 beware of her revenge. That the salmon and trout 

 may live, a whole host of stream-haunting creatures 

 are condemned, and that often upon the most in- 

 sufficient evidence. 



There is one wholesale method of destruction 

 that particularly affects salmon which cannot be 

 passed over. This is done by nets, and 

 is usually practised at the mouths of rivers, 

 and generally without the slightest regard to the 

 economy of the fish supply ; and it has been found 

 that as salmon and the means of transit increase, 

 so does the number of destructive nets. Theo- 

 retically, legislation is levelled against this wanton 

 destruction, but practically the law is a dead letter. 

 At every tide, in certain seasons, hundreds of 

 thousands of salmon fry and smolts are sacrificed ; 

 and in a certain firth it is recorded how a fisher- 



