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it is unlawful to kill them. It would seem that to permit 
increased facilities for killing fish in the tidal portion, so soon 
as the proprietors in the non-tidal portion have augmented 
the stock, would be a most suicidal proceeding, for owners will 
scarcely care for these fisheries if they are to have no return 
from them. In sixteen years, ending January Ist, 1885, 27,600 
salmon were captured above the Tewkesbury weir, and 233,500 
below it, or nine out of ten fish were taken in the tidal portion; 
in 1880, 15,500 were taken in the entire length of the Severn, 
and only fifteen were obtained by anglers. 
When we consider that each female salmon gives from about 
800 to 1,000 eggs for every pound weight of the parent fish, one 
would imagine that something must be amiss either in the 
condition of the water, the obstructions to the passage of those 
migrating, or in the modes of their capture, that the produce 
in a river like the Severn is merely about 20,000 of these fishes 
annually, a number equal to those of the eggs of one 20-lb. 
fish.* The young as par or lastsprings continue in fresh water 
for two or three seasons, when they change their colour from 
being yellow banded with silver and covered with black and 
scarlet spots, to a silvery colour with few spots, when as smolts 
they descend to the sea returning probably the succeeding year 
in the autumn as grilse which after breeding again migrate to 
the ocean to re-appear as salmon. Whether these fish breed 
annually or every alternate year has been questioned, some at 
least cannot be annual breeders, such as clean fish which 
ascend in the autumn, rendering it probable that they do so on 
alternate years, as is the case in some American rivers. Grilse 
as up to 5 Ib. or 6 lb. are termed botchers, small salmon as of 
about 10 Ib. are termed gillings in the trade, and mending kelts 
laurels. 
Salmon trout are not so numerous in the Severn as in some 
other rivers, it was asserted in 1860 that they were so uncom- 
mon that they were given to the fishermen as their perquisites. 
® July 19th, 1887, the retail price of salmon at Gloucester was 10d., and 
at Cheltenham 1s. a pound. 
