336 WHAT I HAVE SEEN WHILE FISHING 



CHAPTER V. 



POACHING A MEETING WITH A POACHER JACK FISHING 



OLD MORTIMER DACE FISHING. 



IMMEDIATELY after leaving what I have always 

 since called Mr., Mrs. and Master Phillips' barbel 

 swim, we shall reach the high perpendicular bank 

 which has withstood, as best it could, the headlong 

 rush of the angry floods for longer than my memory 

 serves. 



The winter's frosts, following fast upon the 

 autumn rains, have materially assisted the deter- 

 mined and almost successful efforts of the river 

 to get at the railway. A few more years and the 

 small portion of meadow still intervening will have 

 disappeared from Bucks and will have been carried 

 over to the Berks side, there to aid in the forma- 

 tion of an island, which already rears its head 

 sufficiently to act as a breakwater, much to the 

 satisfaction of a number of jack and perch which 

 make the tail and inner side their home. 



No doubt this filching habit of Father Thames 

 is not quite so satisfactory to the loser of the land 

 as to the shoals of fish which are thereby fed and 



