192 WOODLANDERS AND FIELD FOLK 



reach on a well-known trout stream which is so 

 overgrown with wood and coppice as to render it 

 unfishable. This reach swarms with handsome well- 

 fed trout ; and yet far back among the rocky shelves 

 of the river a brood of otters are brought forth 

 annually, have been in fact time out of mind. And 

 yet another incident. Of forty-five dead otters 

 killed in hunting, in two only were there remains of 

 fish food, and this consisted of eels deadly enemies 

 either to trout stream or salmon river. These 

 forty-five otters, for the most part, were killed before 

 six in the morning, and consequently when their 

 stomachs were most likely to contain traces of what 

 had been taken in their night's fishing. 



Another enemy to salmon and trout is the great 

 black cormorant a poacher that studies their 

 migratory and local movements, and acts accord- 

 ingly. It is the habit of this bird to visit small 

 rivers which flow into the sea, especially during the 

 late winter and early spring months. At these 

 seasons the smolts are preparing to come down, and 

 the kelts of salmon and sea trout are assembling 

 in the large pools prior to their return to salt water. 

 A brace of cormorants which were shot at their 

 fishing were found to contain twenty-six and fourteen 

 salmon smolts respectively, and a trustworthy 

 water bailiff asserts that he once watched a couple of 

 cormorants hunt and kill a kelt salmon, and that 



