A Winter Armistice December, though only a comparatively small body
of people, mostly fishermen, realize it, is a close season. The salmon at any rate enjoys protection, and unlike the coarse fish selects this wintry season for breeding. The rains are therefore peculiarly welcome, especially in Scotland, and on the Tweed perhaps above other rivers, for they have restored the spawning beds to their proper quality and privacy. The rains are good for all fish, especially at this season. Some of our less pellucid Southern streams, called by courtesy trout streams, are clogged up with mud, and this mud is never so poisonous to fish as when it is mingled with dead fallen leaves, that ooze unpleasant gases con- tinually. They have been rejoicing on the Tweed (as many writers in the Field have pointed out) in the grateful but not fully explained increase of spring run fish ; and if we were more careful about pollution, our more southerly rivers might share in the revival.
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