for one to lift another will come to its aid, even four or five having been seen to unite their forces. It is a good-sized stone which can resist their efforts, and the mischief they do is considerable. Even water beetles and their larvæ must, on account of their numbers and voracity, come within the reckoning, and among the most destructive of these are water-shrimps and the larvæ of the dragon-fly. Have we not been told that while the loved May-fly is "on," all hours, meats, decencies, and respectabilities must yield to his caprice, so that the pink-spotted trout, rushing from every hover, may be lifted gently from its native stream to gasp away its life among the lush summer grass? But if the gauzy-winged fly is one of the loved likes of the trout, the former has its day, for none of the larvæ of water beetles is so destructive to spawn and fry as this. Pike and coarse fish are equally partial to the same repast, and even salmon and trout devour the young of their own kind. Waterfowl are among the trout-stream poachers, and the swan is a perfect gourmand. My swan and her crew (five cygnets) would dispose of two million five hundred thousand eggs in that time. Some of the best trout streams in the country have been depopulated of fish by these birds, and the Thames as a fishing river is now greatly suffering from the number of swans allowed upon it.[3] Both wild and domestic ducks are destructive to spawn and almost live on the "redds" during the breeding season. We have more than once shot moorhens in autumn with spawn dripping from their bills, and the birds themselves gorged with it. The coot has been charged with the same crime, though as yet guilt has only been brought home to it with regard to coarse fish; and to the silvery bleak it is said to be particularly partial. The grebe or dabchick must be looked upon as an arrant little poacher not only of eggs and fry but of fish in every stage of growth. It is said that a pair of dabchicks will do more harm on a river than a pair of otters, which, however, is perhaps not so terrible as it sounds. Fourteen little grebes fishing about a mile of trout stream, as we have known, is overstepping the balance of nature, and would certainly injure the river; and Mr. Bartlett has stated that a pair of these birds which he kept in confinement cost the Zoological Society a considerable sum in providing small fish for them. Frank Buckland had a grebe sent to him which had been choked by a bullhead, and the same fate has not unfrequently befallen kingfishers and other aquatic feeders. The vegetarian water-voles may be written down innocent with regard to spawn, or at the worst "not proven." Our British voles are miniature beavers that haunt the water sides and lead a fairy-like existence among the osier-beds and lily-pads. They know but little of winter, and therefore of the spawning season, and their delectable lives are lived on through ever-recurring summers. Until lately