st upon mere
supposition; the freshwater shrimps at Knowlmere were seen
devouring the ova in the spawning-boxes. We have seen above that
Par eat ova as well as Trout. Let us suppose that the millions of
Smolts (as Par) have only one meal each of Salmon roe, and we will
stint them to twenty ova apiece. I fear that very few of the five
millions which Salmo Salar says are deposited in the Hodder will
be left to grow into Salmon. In addition to these, ducks, both
wild and tame, eat them greedily. When Ramsbottom was in Galway he
saw that the tame ducks frequented the spawning ford, and the
superintendent bought one, and found its crop quite full of Salmon
roe. If this had been buried eighteen inches in the gravel (as
Salmo Salar suggests), the duck would have had some difficulty in
extracting it; but so far as my experience goes, it is not usually
one-half that depth, although this varies in different rivers.
Then, if one Salmon is able to plough up gravel which is cemented
together by sand and long continuance in one place, why should not
another be able to do the same when the gravel is loose and easily
removed? But there is another enemy whom Salmo Salar has not
mentioned, who does more harm than all the rest: that is the
poacher, and I fear that many of the Salmon which Salmo Salar saw
spawning in the Hodder and its tributaries have since then made a
journey overland. At all events, I am credibly informed that in
one season a gang of poachers took seventy Salmon in the Hodder.
Is he sure they have taken none this season? Salmo Salar seems to
think that one pair of Salmon will not spawn on the same ground,
which has been previously occupied by another pair; but he has
only to watch the same ridd for a week or two to be convinced he
is mistaken. As to fish refusing to spawn on new gravel, I may
state that when Mr. Fawkes was making his experiments at Farnley
he put some new gravel into his brook, and there were sixteen
pairs of Trout spawning on it the next morning. Salmo Salar says
that if he can have those simple checks which he enumerates to the
present practices, he will restore abundance of Salmon to the
Ribble; they are all very good in their way, but do not go quite
far enough, and they would do very little good without a fourth,
namely, protection from the poacher for the fish on the spawning
beds. Until this can be given more efficiently than it is at
present, all the rest will be unavailing; and until the upper