62 How to obtain it. 
regulate the water, yet the supply should not always be just the 
same. It is not so in nature. There are freshets or spates which 
are often very beneficial to the fish. Now, we have the advantage 
in a well ordered fish pond of producing these artificially, when- 
ever desirable, and what is more, we can have the spate without a 
flood and without fear of an overflow. Anyone who has seen an 
artificial spate sent through a pond during dry hot weather in 
July, would never doubt again the beneficial influence it had on 
the trout. We know that in streams they often suffer very much 
during droughts, and occasionally even die in numbers. What 
a great advantage it would be in such a case to send down 
an artificial spate occasionally, giving the fish not only additional 
water, but taking care that that water was charged with trout food. 
It could easily be done and would be an invaluable help, and I 
venture to say it will be done before long. 
I shall never forget a case in which I was once called 
suddenly in the month of July, to look at some trout in a pond 
that had heen almost deprived of its water supply during a long 
drought. When I arrived I found but a mere trickle going into 
the pond, where the sun’s rays had heated it toa dangerous 
degree. Nota drop was running out, and the water had fallen 
considerably below the overflow level, owing to the loss by 
evaporation and soakage. The trout were gasping on the surface, 
and a crowd of them also in the same condition were about the 
inlet. The case looked hopeless, but 27/7 desperandum. The 
pond was supplied from a mountain stream, and this stream, like 
hundreds of its class, was almost dry. But it consisted, as most 
mountain streams, do of pool after pool, and some of them were 
of fair size. Obtaining a couple of men armed with crowbars, 
spades, and pickaxes, I had them at work in a few minutes letting 
off these natural water supplies. ‘There was no difficulty about it 
as the stream bed consisted mainly of boulders and gravel, and 
by shovelling away a little of the latter or lifting a boulder or two 
a considerable amount of water was liberated, and in a few 
minutes a small artificial spate was going merrily through the 
pond. The fish revived at once, and thus a valuable stock was 
saved from certain destruction. Had this not been done, at least 
three-fourths of them, if not all, would have been dead in a few 
