376 TROUT AND ANGLING. 



their nature. As it respects this mill, it is a more 

 desperate case for the fish, than indeed where the 

 communication with the brook is entirely cut off, 

 since the improvement of the dam for factory pur- 

 poses, and the consequent alteration of a waste 

 way, that now falls in a lofty cascade. We have 

 been surprised that this arrangement was permit- 

 ted, since it effectually shuts out the herrings as 

 well as the trout, the former being so essential to 

 the support of the poorer class. 



We remember in the olden time, when every 

 drop of water was by no means so precious as it is 

 now-a-days, that while passing this dam, on our 

 way to " Poket," it was a common thing to be 

 accosted by the worthy miller, with an offer of 

 large trout, which of course we always rejected, 

 expecting to take larger and better ourselves, nei- 

 ther did we altogether approve his modus operandi, 

 simple enough to be sure, as may be seen by what fol- 

 lows. Observing that the trout, in their efforts to 

 struggle through what is called the waste way, were 

 cast back again by the force of the gorge, into one 

 particular shallow of the stream ; he there drove a 

 circle of stakes, making a sort of pound, from 

 which there was no escape, and whence the 

 trout thus confined, were taken at pleasure. We 

 remember to have noticed the same invention, 

 though upon a larger scale, in Canada, at the up- 



