DEPOPULATION OF TROUT-STREAMS. 109 



days of artificial rearing, restocking, and preser- 

 vation generally, anglers and angling associations 

 are apt either to forget or to ignore the balance 

 of Nature. They destroy her appointed agents, 

 and then fail to understand her consistent revenge. 

 Now Nature rarely overlooks an insult. That 

 the pink-spotted trout may live, a whole host of 

 stream-haunting creatures are condemned ; and 

 this, too, often on the most insufficient evidence. 

 Numerous waterfowl the coot, rail, kingfisher, 

 dipper are said to be injurious to the interests 

 of anglers, because they destroy the ova on the 

 " redds." But it is doubtful whether there is any 

 serious foundation for the charge, except in the 

 case of the kingfisher ; and Frank Buckland it was 

 who said that one might as well shoot a swallow 

 skimming over a turnip-field, as a dipper over the 

 spawning-beds in autumn. Even the harmless 

 water-vole, which is a vegetarian, and feeds upon 

 the thick, succulent stalks of aquatic plants, has 

 been denounced as a destroyer of spawn. But 

 the creature against which the orthodox angler 

 " breathes hot roarings out " is the Otter. Yet 

 how few fish does the Otter really destroy ! The 

 evidence to be gathered by those who live along 

 its streams all goes to show that fresh-water 

 crayfish form the staple of its food. It wanders 

 miles in a night in search of this dainty, and will 

 not partake of soft-bodied fish so long as this 



