520 FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN 



that her employers persisted in giving her turkey so fre- 

 quently for dinner. But whatever our opinion maybe upon 

 the stipulations of the apprentices, there can be no question 

 whatever that in former days many of our streams abounded 

 with excellent fish, where few or none are now to be found. 

 Nor is the evil by any means confined within the limits of 

 England, or even of the United Kingdom. Switzerland 

 sends forth a lamentation over her failing resources, so 

 does Hungary, so does Belgium, so does Norway itself, 

 the fruitful mother of cataract and fjord. Many causes, no 

 doubt, combine to produce this disastrous result : the 

 poisoning of streams by the sewage of towns, and by the 

 refuse of manufactories, the greediness of fish-eating birds, 

 surpassing, it would seem, even the voracious rapacity of 

 fish-selling man, are all elements tending to the destruction 

 of the aquatic creation. Rigid rules as to close time and 

 prohibitions as to the discharge of deleterious matter en- 

 forced by active inspection have done something to arrest 

 the wholesale waste of the material of food, but preventive 

 measures alone will not suffice to restore the lost fruitful- 

 ness to our empty streams. To give back to the rivers the 

 stock they once possessed and to vivify with fresh abundance 

 our waste and desecrated waters, is a task requiring much 

 intelligence, no little capital, and almost infinite patience. 

 Yet so widely has it been attempted, and so beneficial 

 are its results when carried on under the conditions neces- 

 sary for success, that although these breeding-grounds are 

 rather nurseries for the spawn than actual fisheries, still no 

 history of the latter can have any pretension to complete- 

 ness which does not afford some slight indication of the 

 numerous efforts made in this direction. 



Pisciculture in its simpler form was without question 

 commonly practised in ancient times, and the classic writers 



