392 AUTUMN AND WINTER 



instinct, this burrowing of the mother fish. On any favour- 

 able gravel patch in a trout stream you may easily watch 

 the fish it may be, first, fighting for the right of possession 

 scrape and wriggle and butt against the gravel with half- 

 frenzied energy, until a hollow is scooped of just the due 

 depth, where the waters shall keep fresh the eggs but not 

 remove them, and all the requisites of incubation be perfectly 

 served. The uniformity of the mother's choice of a cradle 

 and her energy in preparation contrast strangely with the 

 incalculable mortality. If ever there is reckless expenditure 

 it is in the ova of a fish. The Tennyson line ' of myriads 

 brings not one to birth ' might attach as truly to the fish as 

 the sallow. All that one can say, here, as in the fields, is 

 that in the scheme of things expenditure is not waste. The 

 eggs and the young fish, to repeat a comparison, are as the 

 wheat of the fields. They are produced not only to the 

 welfare of their own race. 



But the tribes of fish that spend much time in the sea, 

 and like the salmon make periodically for inland waters, 

 are much larger and more various than is usually understood. 

 Millions of various species make their way to fresher waters 

 in order to carry out the universal instinct of multiplying 

 their kind. When this is accomplished they leisurely find 

 their way back to the sea. Among them are the smelt, the 

 lamprey or lampern, sea trout, grey mullet, and many others. 

 Some come up in such numbers as to make their capture 

 profitable. A number of men in East Anglia devote their 

 time during these periodic migrations to nothing else but 

 their capture. The smelt is a notable instance. Others come 

 upstream in so unobtrusive or so irregular a manner as to be 

 seldom sought after, although on occasion their numbers may 

 be so great as to astonish their captor. Some years ago a 

 man who had set an eel-net in the Waveney, after one night's 



