54 A Sportsman at Large 



In the month of May I happened to notice movements 

 in the water such as I had observed at Canon's. I felt sure 

 that fish of some sort were in the water, so I fetched my rod, 

 and, baiting with brandling worm, set to work. History 

 repeated itself, for I was kept busy from the very start. This 

 time the mysterious fish proved to be tench, averaging about 

 three to the two pounds, and all of practically the same 

 weight. 



I took twenty-seven of them and the next day a visitor had 

 forty ! And yet, only six months had passed since the pond 

 was as dry as a turnpike road ! 



What about it ? 



" Oh ! " say some, " the tench must have lain snug in the 

 mud until the pond refilled ! " 



It won't do ! There was no mud. There was not even 

 clay. Besides, tench have not the pulmonary advantages 

 of the cerodotus ! 



" Someone must have introduced them without your 

 knowledge,' 1 say others. 



Not on your life ! Fancy anyone taking the trouble to 

 procure some ten dozen three-quarter pound tench and 

 surreptitiously introducing them to private waters just for the 

 fun of the thing ! Go to ! otherwise Rats ! 



No, the sanest theory which I can advance, is that wild fowl 

 convey the spawn of fish to virgin waters on their feet or 

 plumage. Or, what is still more likely, devour spawn, which 

 passes through without being sterilized. But such being 

 admitted, for the sake of argument, it is still a brain-racking 

 puzzle to conceive how fish thus propagated could possibly 

 attain a weight oj three-quarters of a pound in six months ! I 

 give it up ! 



It is a remarkable thing, too, that tench never previously 

 throve in the Big Pond. I introduced many, but not a single 

 one was ever seen or caught again, and when the pond was 

 drained devil a tench was in evidence. 



What is more, after about sixty of these mysterious new- 

 comers had been landed by various anglers, there was a sudden 

 cessation, and from that day to this (on which I write) not 

 a tench has been caught, seen, or heard of in the Big Pond 



