102 ANCIENT ANGLING AUTHORS 



and many passages in which unfair and unseason- 

 able fishing is denounced have kept alive the true 

 sporting instinct among anglers, and enabled them 

 of late years, when by combination they became 

 powerful, to obtain from our government laws for 

 the protection of their interests which as individuals 

 they asked for in vain." The passage to which Mr 

 Marston specially refers concludes as follows : 



But above all the taking fish in spawning time, 

 may be said to be against nature ; it is like taking 

 the dam from the nest when she hatches her young. 



It is a matter for regret that the Mundella Act 

 for the enforcement of the fence-months for coarse 

 fish in England is not universal in its application, 

 and that the large extent of the Norfolk Broads is 

 exempt from its provisions. It is not so much the 

 loss of the fish taken during the fence-months which 

 is to be deplored, as the demoralising effect which 

 the " taking Fish in spawning time " exercises on the 

 sporting instincts of those who indulge in such 

 practices. I have known anglers so lost to all 

 sense of shame, that they have actually incurred the 

 expense of setting up the specimen fish, which they 

 have caught during spawning time, thus affording 

 a permanent tribute to their lack of sportsmanlike 

 instinct. 



