400 THE DRY-FLY MAN'S HANDBOOK 



but these fish, following their natural instinct of repro- 

 duction, positively destroy the eggs which have already 

 been laid in the redds by the naturally bred fish of the 

 river. 



Just as the doctor who had diagnosed a specific 

 disease would be deemed a charlatan unless he 

 suggested a remedy, so it becomes the duty of those 

 who had drawn attention to the rapidly progressing 

 deterioration of chalk-stream trout to devise the means 

 of palliating or removing it. The first and most 

 obvious step must be a reversion to the old-fashioned 

 plan of taking the ovg, and milt from the very best 

 strains of natura,lly bred wild fish, and it is not 

 altogether easy to find them. It will not sufifice for 

 the few owners and lessees of fisheries who have the 

 means of hatching out these ova to be the only ones 

 to adopt this course. The pisciculturist himself must 

 without delay proceed to breed a new race of trout 

 from the wild fish, keeping them to breed from and 

 doing away with the old worn-out and degenerate 

 spawning fish in his ponds. Even when he has suc- 

 ceeded in raising the necessary stock of breeding fish 

 he must, year after year, prevent their degeneration by 

 ever introducing fresh blood, either by fertilized ova or 

 milt, or both, from the best strains of naturally bred 

 fish available. 



There is good reason to believe that, if necessary, 

 milt from the male fish can be expressed into a dry 

 bottle or tube, tightly corked, and transported any 

 distance not requiring more than, say, forty-eight hours 



