* * * DESECRATED RIVERS,
At the moment no animal seems to need sanctuary so much as the rivers themselves, in Scotland as in England and Wales. They are grossly violated in every sort of way ; and it is to be feared that the comparative paucity of the fish in them this summer is at least in part due to pollution. Dwellers by the Tweed as well as fishermen are protesting against the rain of pots and pans and crocks and all' sorts of rubbish that are dumped into the river wherever it passas by human habita- tions. No place seems to be exempt. To quote only what I have seen ; every village on the Lee uses this pleasant-wander-1 ing stream as a dumping place. Children who wade into it— often to catch crayfish lurking in the crocks—cut their feet on snags of glass and tin. In the lovely rivers that run seawards from the Devils Bridge (a bit of wild scenery not inferior to the Cairngorms), the spawning beds have been utterly ruined by dumped refuse. The Wye below Hereford— in a shire that is one of the least spoilt, to say no more, within Britain—is in better case ; but every fisherman thereabouts has this season lamented the fewness of the salmon and the lateness of their arrival ; and among the score of causes sug- gested by various critics contamination is one. It may be that oil at the estuary is not blameless.
Previous page
