396 THE DRY-FLY MAN'S HANDBOOK 



"Journal of the Fly-Fishers' Club," entitled "Re- 

 stocking of Trout-Streams." He has also author- 

 ized me to quote from a letter addressed by him to 

 a correspondent dealing more in detail with his 

 opinions on the subject in reference to the Itchen. 

 In his letter he says: "This deterioration has been 

 slow but sure for many years past, and during the 

 last four or five seasons has rendered nearly valueless 

 many miles of the river. The lower reaches of the 

 Itchen first suffered, next the middle reaches, and 

 now, although there are portions of the middle Itchen 

 where good sport is obtained and the trout killed are 

 handsome fish, these successes are hardly earned by 

 most careful and skilled fishery management and con- 

 stant restocking with the very pick of the trou|- 

 farmer's ready-grown trout ; these trout, hand-reared 

 until they are two or three years of age, are very 

 short lived, and they make very bad parent fish. 

 Thus with a slowly weakening strain among most of 

 our artificially bred trout, and a rapid falling off in the 

 health of our wild fish, the future of our Itchen 

 fisheries looks gloomy indeed, and I venture to 

 suggest that what has occurred on the lower Itchen 

 and is now affecting the middle reaches of the same 

 stream may at no distant date prove a source of 

 danger to the upper part of the river also." 



I want the reader to understand clearly Mr. Corrie's 

 meaning, the more so as I am in every way in accord 

 with him as to the causes of the evil and the sug- 

 gested remedies. In order to illustrate the appear- 



