182 WOODLANDERS AND FIELD FOLK 



I 



SPAWN EATERS 



THE economy of the extreme prolificness of the 

 sporting fishes of Britain can best be understood 

 when we come to consider the host of enemies which 

 beset both salmon and trout in the very first stages 

 of their existence. Nature is prolific in her waste, 

 and a whole army of Nature's poachers have to be 

 satisfied. So true is this that the yearly yield of the 

 largest salmon-producing river in the kingdom is 

 computed at about the produce of one female fish of 

 from fifteen pounds to twenty pounds in weight; 

 the produce of all the rest being lost or wasted. 

 Sometimes a single ill-timed spate will destroy 

 millions of eggs by tearing them from the gravel and 

 laying them bare to a whole host of enemies. These 

 enemies are in the air, on the land, in the water, and 

 nothing short of an enumeration of them can convey 

 any idea of their numbers and wholesale methods 

 of destruction. In addition to the yearling salmon 

 and trout which for ever haunt the skirts of the 

 spawning grounds, there are always a number of 

 mature unfertile fish which for a part of the year 

 live entirely upon the spawn. An instance of this is 

 recorded by a river watcher on the Thames, who 

 states that while procuring trout ova in a stream at 



