STOCKING 393 



freely, they do not play as well, they are not as hand- 

 some in shape, colour, or markings, and they are not 

 as palatable on the table. It is to be feared that unless 

 the most drastic remedies are applied without delay 

 this degeneration will continue and progress with ever- 

 increasing rapidity. 



On some parts of the Test lessees have adopted the 

 ill-advised plan, before alluded to in this chapter, of 

 purchasing yearlings, keeping them in stews, giving 

 them an unduly liberal quantity of food, thus growing 

 them up to abnormally large and unhealthy two and 

 three-year-olds, and turning them into the river at, or 

 immediately before, the commencement of the spring 

 fishing. In and below the waters into which they are 

 introduced one almost invariably hears of great 

 numbers of large fish being killed in the spring, fish 

 which rise at any pattern of fly, give little or no 

 show of fight when hooked, turn dark or nearly 

 black soon after death, and are absolutely useless for 

 the table. 



The reasons for this are not far to seek. Such fish 

 have been overfed in youth and are constitutionally 

 unhealthy. When first thrown on their own resources 

 they will take any fly offered to them, give little sport, 

 and a large proportion soon succumb to the wiles of 

 the dry-fly fisherman. Those that survive, never 

 having had to seek their own food, rapidly fall off in 

 condition and drop from the streamy water to deep 

 and comparatively sluggish reaches, when they rarely 

 feed on the surface of the stream. Many who have 



