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the fisheries of the lower Severn, are fallen to great poverty. 
The young which used to descend in shoals, as a fisherman 
expressed it, “‘like autumn leaves on the river,’’ are now seen in 
a few dozens only at a time, or more likely merely two or three 
together. 
Lampreys are a form of almost parasitic fish, which have 
been observed to attach themselves to their victims and eat 
into their substance. The earliest examples obtained from this 
river of late years was on March 15th, 1881, and the latest 
May 18th, 1887. Their season at Tewkesbury is stated to be 
from April to the middle of June, and their greatest perfection 
to be about Ascension Day. They breed about May, and sub- 
sequently return to the sea in an exhausted condition. These 
fish up to within recent years were pretty abundant in the 
upper portion of the Severn, but decreased very perceptibly 
from twelve or fourteen years since. They were captured by 
bargemen far above Shrewsbury, and ascended into the 
Verniew: some fishermen took them by means of bush nets, 
and one plan was to pass a hand into a stocking, and then in a 
punt provided with a steady boatman to drop quietly down a 
shallow, when one or a pair of these fish would not uncom- 
monly be seen at the tail of the ford attached to a stone by 
means of their sucker. As soon as perceived the boat was 
stopped, and the fish if possible seized by the covered hand, 
without which it would slip out of the grasp. They were 
supposed to be blind from not moving when anyone was in 
their close vicinity. Large numbers were likewise captured in 
the tidal portion of the river, but everywhere they have 
decreased in numbers, and now appear to be unknown in the 
higher districts of the Severn. Although surfeiting as food, 
it has been held in great estimation, especially when potted or 
stewed. Henry I. is said to have paid with life, at Rouen, in 
1135, the penalty of too great an indulgence in this article of 
diet. A lamprey pie, embellished with gilded ornaments, was 
sent annually, as a Christmas present, from the Corporation of 
Gloucester to the sovereign of the realm, up to the period of 
Corporate Reform in 1830. 
