98 BRITISH SPORTING FISHES. 
dipper on the mossy stones, the coots, the grebes, 
the teal, the blue heron of the shallows? All 
are gone—a sacrifice to pollution. Once there 
were salmon and trout, pike, perch, roach, and 
bream; these have gone the way of the birds. 
Once the otter haunted the quiet pools, but it 
left them when its food ceased. Once there 
were water-rats, voles, shrews, and mice; these 
were long ago thinned out of existence. There 
were the gauzy-winged flies, too, so exquisite 
of form and colour, that were characteristic of 
the anglers’ months—from dry March to sodden 
October ; the trout-loved denizens of the streams, 
the ephemere. But these vanished at the very 
first sign of pollution. And now that all these 
are gone, our typical rivulet is what it is, a foul, 
unlovely stream, destitute of life. Pollution is 
indirectly responsible, too, for the disease which 
periodically affects the fish in the rivers and 
lakes of this country. Some few years ago this 
scourge played terrible havoc in many of the 
best northern streams, especially those which 
were systematically polluted. Whether it is true 
that pollution is the first cause of disease may 
be open to question; but it is certain that fish 
once so afflicted never recover, save in water 
of the purest description. 
To look at the question of pollution, how- 
