Decrease of Coarse Fish. 85 



was a misfortune to hear her first in bed, since it 

 might mean a long illness. This, by-the-by, may 

 have been a pleasant fable invented to get milkmaids 

 up early of a morning. 



The number of coarse fish in the brook which 

 flows out of the shallow mere bounding one edge of 

 the keeper's domain of woods has, he thinks, very 

 much decreased of recent years. When he first came 

 here the stream seemed full of fish, notwithstanding 

 very little care had till then been taken with their 

 preservation. They used to net it once now and 

 then, and he has seen a full hundredweight of fair- 

 sized jack, perch, tench, &c, taken out of the water 

 in a very short time, besides quantities of smaller fry 

 which were put back again. But although the brook, 

 so far as his jurisdiction goes, has since been com- 

 paratively well preserved, yet he feels certain the fish 

 have diminished. 



There are no chemical works to account for this 

 with the subtle poison of their waste, neither are 

 there mills to prevent the fish coming up — perhaps it 

 would be better if there were some mills, as they 

 would stop the fish going down. I have noticed 

 that where old water-wheels have ceased working the 

 fish have almost disappeared. This, of course, may 

 be but a purely local phenomenon, but it is certainly 



