5 
A PET TROUTERY. 
HEN living in Hampshire a few years ago I had unusual 
facilities for observing the ways and habits of trout. 
They became a great delight to me, and many an hour 
did I spend in the company of my darling fish, which 
I soon looked upon as entertaining and instructive pets. 
.\ hundred yards above my garden there bubbled up, amid the 
sand and flints in a shallow hole, a glorious spring of the purest 
and clearest water imaginable. It was fed by the rain that had 
fallen on the Southdown Hills, and had been filtered through 
hundreds of feet of chalk. The stream from this spring ran 
along the side of the village road and past my lawn, emptying 
itself into an arm of the sea barely a quarter of a mile Ijelow. 
In the top corner of the lawn there was a small sluice gate, 
which admitted a sufficient flow of water to supply the moats 
that separated the garden from the adjoining field. This sluice 
had to be carefully guarded for fear any fish should get out 
of bounds and into danger. The most efficient barrier proved 
to be a stout iron grating, which had often to be cleared, or it 
became choked and obstructed the free entrance of the water. 
An ordinary piece of boarding across the sluice was found to be 
decidedly dangerous, as the fish would leap it when the outside 
stream became a little fuller than usual. The stream through 
the upper part of the lawn was about six feet wide and some 
thirty-five yards long ; its sides were bricked — as indeed was all 
my water — to about eighteen inches above the water’s edge. A 
small culvert (across which was a delightful summer-house), 
joined this stream to the central moat, and here my show fish 
were kept. This moat was thirty yards long and five feet deep, 
and was connected by a small waterfall with another moat at 
the side of the kitchen garden. This was a much larger and 
deeper piece of water, having trees along one side of it, whose 
branches, stretching over the water, assisted not a little in pro- 
viding food, as most trees do, in the shape of flies, caterpillars, 
and suchlike fish delights. 
In a little paradise like this it was no easy matter to 
keep up a stock of large trout, for I lost them in various ways. 
If the grating were by chance removed, even but for a short 
time, one or two of the fish would take an excursion into 
the stream outside, whence, if they did not come to grief, 
I had great difficulty in persuading them to return. One 
night, during violent rain, the grating became choked, and the 
water poured in volumes over the top. Next morning several 
of my best fish were gone, for they had leaped their bars. Then 
I am afraid the village lads used now and then to practise 
their sportive turn of mind on my pets, by taking a mean 
advantage of me, and fishing for them at peep o’ day, when I 
was safe in bed. This I always found out, even if I did not 
