1 90 The Gamekeeper at Home. 



The stream, where not strictly preserved, is 

 frequently netted without the slightest regard to 

 season. The net is stretched from bank to bank, and 

 watched by one man, while the other walks up the 

 brook thirty or forty yards, and drives the fish down 

 the current into the bag. With a long pole he 

 thrashes the water, making a good deal of splash, and 

 rousing up the mud, which fish dislike and avoid. 

 The pole is thrust into every hiding-place, and pokes 

 everything out. The watcher by the net knows by 

 the bobbing under of the corks when a shoal of roach 

 and perch, or a heavy pike, has darted into it, and 

 instantly draws the string and makes his haul. In 

 this way, by sections at a time, the brook, perhaps for 

 half a mile, is quite cleared out. Jack, however, 

 sometimes escape ; they seem remarkably shrewd and 

 quick to learn. If the string is not immediately 

 drawn when they touch the net, they are out of it 

 without a moment's delay : they will double back up 

 stream through all the splashing and mud, and some 

 will even slide as it were between the net and the 

 bank if it does not quite touch in any place, and so 

 get away. 



In its downward course the brook irrigates many 

 water meadows, and to drive the stream out upon 

 them there are great wooden hatches. Sometimes a 



