"'Sketches of British Sporting Fishes,' by John Watson, afford pleasant reading interspersed with information, the result of practical experience and close observation. Nor does the author confine his remarks entirely to fish, but touches on such connected subjects as fish poaching, some of the tricks of which he describes. The chapter on grayling is written in the same easy and unpretentious style as the rest of the book."
Footnotes
[1] For several interesting facts concerning the flight of insects, especially the dragon-fly, I am indebted to the late Dr. Gough.
[2] "Sometimes while stealing along in a quiet deep channel but a few yards wide, worn through the rock, or between it and the green bank opposite, the spectator would marvel at the broad expanse of shingle or barren sand. Little would he wonder if, after a week's rain, he sought the same spot, when Tweed was coming down in his might, and every tributary stream, transformed for the nonce into a river, swelled the mighty flood. Then timber trees, sawn wood, dead animals, farming implements, even haystacks would come floating down, and the very channel of the river would be diverted, sometimes never to return to its ancient course. Sad was the havoc occasioned among the embryo spawn; torn from its bed, it would be carried down stream, to be devoured by the trout or the eel, or to perish amid the waste of waters. We felt on these occasions pretty safe. Our principal enemies were dispersed: the gulls sought worms in the ploughed uplands; the kingfisher and the solitary heron flew away to the smaller streams, where the less turbid water permitted them to see their prey. The cold, slimy, cruel eel, alone of all our enemies, was then to be dreaded. Crawling along at the bottom of the water, his flat wicked head pressed against the gravel, so as to escape the force of the stream, the wily beast would insinuate himself into every crevice or corner, where a small fish might have taken shelter, or a drowned worm be lodged, and all was prey to him." The Autobiography of a Salmon.
[3] "One had better throw open his pond or river to all the poachers in the district than indulge in a taste for swans. If any one doubts this, let him row up the Thames from Weybridge to Chertsey, or on to Laleham, during the latter end of the month of April or early in May, and take particular and special notice of what the swans are doing. If he has still any doubt, and likes to kill one or two and cut them open, he will solve his doubts and do a service at the same time; he may be fined for it, but he will certainly suffer for a good action and in a good cause. A swan can and will devour a gallon of fish-spawn every day while the spawn remains unhatched, if he can get it; and it is easily found. I leave the reader to calculate what the few hundreds (I might almost say thousands) on the Thames devour in the course of two or three months. Their greediness and voracity for fish-spawn must be witnessed to be believed. If this were not so, the Thames ought to swarm to excess with fish, whereas it is but poorly supplied. Here is a little calculation. Suppose each swan only to take a quart of spawn per diem, which is a very low average indeed; suppose each quart to contain fifty-thousand eggs (not a tithe of what it does contain). I am not speaking of salmon and trout here, their ova being much larger; suppose only two hundred swans (about a fourth, perhaps, of the number really employed) are at work at the spawn, and give them only a fortnight for the period of their ravages. Now what is the result we get? Why, a little total of one hundred and forty million. One hundred and forty million of eggs! Suppose only half of those eggs to become fish, and we have a loss of seventy millions of fish every year to the River Thames—a heavy price to pay for the picturesque, particularly when the reality may perhaps be doubled, or trebled, or even quadrupled." Francis Francis.
[4] "Then the kingfisher, with rufous breast and glorious mantle of blue, would dart like a plummet from his roost, and seize unerringly any little truant which passed within his ken. The appetite of this bird was miraculous; I never saw him satisfied. He would sit for hours on a projecting bough, his body almost perpendicular, his head thrown back between his shoulders; eyeing with an abstracted air the heavens above or the rocks around him, he seemed intent only upon exhibiting the glorious lustre of his plumage, and the brilliant colours with which his azure back was shaded; but let a careless samlet stray beneath him, and in a twinkling his nonchalant attitude was abandoned. With a turn so quick that the eye could scarce follow it, his tail took the place of his head, and, falling rather than flying, he would seize his victim, toss him once into the air, catch him as he fell, head foremost, and swallow him in a second. This manœuvre he would repeat from morning till night; such a greedy, insatiable little wretch I never saw!"—The Autobiography of a Salmon.
[5] "In this neighbourhood I escaped, by pure good fortune, a danger that I afterwards learnt proved fatal to thousands—nay, tens of thousands—of my young companions. The stream had apparently divided, and whilst I followed the course of the right-hand one, the greater number passed down the wider but less rapid left-hand division. Here they speedily encountered a terrific mill-wheel, and, dashing on one side, they found their progress stopped by a small net, which being placed under them, they were landed literally by bushels. My informant, who escaped by passing under the mill-wheel at the imminent risk of being crushed to death, assured me that the bodies of our unlucky brethren were used as manure! And, degrading as the suggestion is, it seems not impossible, for the numbers taken could not be sold or used for food."—The Autobiography of a Salmon.
[6] 1890.
[7] Dr. T. Gough.