CONCERNING MARL PITS. 
151 
long time I could not conceive why they had been left. They 
are, however, without doubt, walls between old and new pits ; 
and they were required because by the time a new pit was 
wanted the old one had become filled wdth water, and could 
not be again worked ; but the same seam of marl was worked 
as near the old pit as possible, the mid-feather being left to dam 
the water out of the new pit. 
Mr. Hope’s next question is “ How did these pits acquire 
their stock of fish ? Will it be said that the landowners stocked 
them when fresh water fish, like carp and tench, figured in the 
daily menu ? ” Yes, I think so. There is no doubt that they 
generally do contain a vast quantity of small fish, chiefly dace, 
or roach, or perch, sometimes tench, and now and then carp ; 
eels frequently. The pits have no communication with streams 
or with other pits, therefore they must have been stocked, in the 
first instance, artificially with all fish, except perhaps eels, 
which can, it is said, migrate from one piece of -water to another. 
They were probably stocked at a time when such kinds of fish 
were more valued than they are at present, which again points 
to the antiquity of the pits. In most old Cheshire leases the 
fish are reserved to the landlord as strictly as the game, and 
the clause doubtless refers to the fish in the pits, for it is 
inserted in leases of farms where there is no possibility of any 
other kind of fishing. 
]\Ir. Hope also draws attention to the small size of the fish. 
He says, “ Recognising their presence, I would ask the further 
question, is there such a thing as degeneration of stock in such 
enclosed areas ? I assume these pits have existed for fifty years, 
as none of my friends remember their formation, during which 
time, probably, there has been no fresh importation in the 
majority of cases. Would such a set of facts affect the stock 
and account for the average smallness of the fish ? ” 
I have no doubt that such conditions affect the size of the 
fish ; but I hardly think it can be called degeneration, because 
if these small fish are removed into large sheets of water, or 
where there is a constant supply of fresh water, they speedily 
grow to their normal size. At any rate I can give a case in 
point where they did so. I was fishing one evening in a very 
small pit, which appeared to be stocked almost entirely with 
tench. They were just in the humour for being caught, and I 
took home with me between one and two hundred fish (I do not 
remember the exact number), each not more than three to four 
inches long. I put them into a shallow pond, in no part more 
than a yard deep, containing no weeds of any kind, but through 
which a stream of clear water, brought from a spring' by a pipe, 
constantly flowed. In two years the fish had grown to a foot 
in length, and probably weighed a pound each. I attributed 
their rapid growth to the unlimited supply of fresh water. I 
take it that the small fish of our pits are the offspring of the 
original ones that were put there ; and that they remain small. 
