101 



a$ to carry off immense quantities of young fry 5 and 

 the winter floods in many parts are so abundant, as to lay 

 whole tracts under water, which, in the dry season, pre- 

 sent a most cheerful and profitable expanse of vegetation. 

 Interspersed with various pieces of water, all of which, 

 \mder such circumstances, become either gainers or losers 

 jay the inundation. 



The fiats bordering the Thames, from Hampton up- 

 wards, are in the summer beautiful meads, that, owing 

 to the winter floods, bear prodigious crops of grass. J 

 know several ponds, and long slips of water, which arc 

 annually stocked with fine fish from the river, and are 

 netted or poached in various ways every summer, until 

 scarce a minnow is left. 



The angler must not despise those little brooks whi^h, 

 perhaps, here and there, are kept up for a head of watc: 

 to supply cattle, or to turn a mill, &c. j in these he \s ill, 

 by patient research, commonly find parts yielding excel- 

 lent sport. Near to towns, such streams are pillaged 

 shamefully ; but in the midst of open fields, where the 

 delicate angler cannot be sheltered from the weather, and 

 to which even the idle are too idle to roam, it is not un- 

 common to fall in with great varieties, attaining to a con^ 

 $iderable growth. 



Wherever improvements are made, the fishes suffer 

 for a time, but afterwards recover, and become very nu- 

 merous. Thus, when a watercourse is made through 

 what were before ditches and puddles, in which, how- 

 ever, some good fish, particularly eels, were found, the 

 whole are often thrown out, and are taken away either 

 by the proprietors, the workmen, or the townspeople* 

 But when the water is allowed to flow in again, a new 

 F3 stock 



