GRILSE 51 



grilse as compared with salmon which are caught in 

 many localities on our coasts, and to the fact that 

 grilse appear to affect some localities more than 

 others. Major Traherne tells us* that in the 

 Hampshire Avon and the Ogmore in Glamorgan- 

 shire grilse are absent, although adult salmon are to 

 be found. I believe, as a matter of fact, this state- 

 ment is open to question. It seems undoubtedly 

 true that grilse, although abundant on the coast, may 

 not enter certain rivers as salmon do. That, in 

 other words, the proportion of grilse to salmon on 

 the coast is a very different thing from the proportion 

 of grilse to salmon in any particular river. When 

 we come to deal with rivers, however, it has to be 

 remembered that we introduce not infrequently the 

 complications due to the action of man in, it may be, 

 overfishing or in polluting the fresh water, and that 

 changes may be going on which prevent our regard- 

 ing the results found as normal. In the Tweed, for 

 instance, the early reports show, according to Willis 

 Bund, that from 1808 to 1853 there were never less 

 than three grilse to one salmon, and that from 1853 

 to 1876 there were two grilse to one salmon. In later 

 years the grilse have continued to diminish. In the 

 Severn they have apparently become rather con- 

 spicuous by their absence. 



Hoek at the mouth of the Rhine found that 

 grilse formed only 24 '1 per cent, of the fish ascend- 

 ing that river. Observations such as these are 

 necessarily made only during the fishing season, 

 while, as I have already said, winter netting in 

 " The Habits of the Salmon," p. 88. 



