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The lampern or silvery lamprey,* although diminished of 
late years, still affords much occupation to fishermen in the 
lower portion of this river, and numbers are taken in cruives 
or wheels about and below Tewkesbury. In the autumn, at 
the navigation weirs, large numbers are taken, but the amount 
is very uncertain; in a good night they may be counted by 
thousands: the chief places for their capture being at the weirs 
of Gloucester, Tewkesbury, Worcester, Camp and Holt on the 
Severn, and Powick on the Teme. ‘The season for their 
capture during the last few years has varied from the beginning 
of October to the end of March, but some are occasionally 
taken up to June. They are largely sold for bait to the cod 
fishermen, being well adapted for this purpose, but those 
obtained late in the season have passed the period when they 
would be useful as cod bait. As to the cost of these fishes, at 
Worcester, in January, 1882, it was about one penny each; at 
Tewkesbury, in January, 1884, they were selling at fifty 
shillings per thousand for bait, or six shillings a hundred for 
potting. For this last purpose they have to be very carefully 
cleaned, and the spinal column removed. Local fishermen 
assert that these fish only cross weirs when the water is so 
high as to quite conceal them, but the correctness of this view 
is somewhat doubtful. 
These fishes ascend high up the Severn, but their periods 
of migration do not seem to be much noticed; they are merely 
employed as bait for eels, one lampern cutting up into four or 
five pieces. They are obtained during the months of June, 
July, and most of August by shovelling out the mud in 
* Randall, in The Severn Valley, 1882, page 502, observed respecting these 
fishes that ‘“‘Lampreys, too, which were formerly considered of more im- 
portance than salmon, and were caught in the upper Severn, have altogether 
ceased to visit it since the erection of the first weir in 1843. An old man at 
Bridgnorth says the large lampreys were called ‘lamper eels,’ and the small 
lampreys ‘lamperns,’ and that the lamper eels were formerly speared on the 
fords, at the bottom of which they excavated a sort of trench, burying their 
heads and flapping their tails. Lampreys are of two kinds—the lamprey, 
formerly taken of large size in the Severn in April and May, during which 
months it ascended the river to spawn, and the lampern, or river lamprey, 
which is smaller, and sometimes called ‘nine eyes.’ ” 
