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Gloucester where the destruction of these young eels goes 
merrily forward. 
Eels are essentially the poor man’s food, and in an official 
report it was held that “the unrestricted destruction of elvers 
was not shown to have any appreciable effect upon the supply 
of eels.” And so destruction of the young proceeds, and 
astonishment is expressed when a diminution of the adult 
stock follows. Another argument added was that eels were 
undesirable in a salmon river as they devoured samlets. When 
they have attained to about six inches in length they are called 
elver-bouts. Consequently there are two migrations—those of 
old ones descending seawards to breed, which they do about 
November, and an up-stream migration of young, that takes 
* place more or less in May and June. But, as already observed, 
glut-eels do not join in either of those acts, but rove about by 
themselves in the fresh waters. Likewise, in the tide-way, 
breeding eels are not constantly descending, for the eel-traps 
are set to capture both ways, on the ebb and flow, as they are 
found to descend with the fresh or land water, but as soon as 
they meet the flood they turn back and re-ascend. This plan 
of capturing, both on an ebbing and a flowing tide, is why the 
eel-traps below Gloucester take so much more than those higher 
up the Severn, for in the non-tidal portions the traps are said 
never to be faced down stream. LHels are likewise taken in 
the autumn months between Stourport and Gloucester, in large 
fixed nets that are used when the water is discoloured by rain. 
There are about twenty of these nets in the district mentioned, 
and each net is probably employed about ten nights yearly, 
with an average take of one cwt. a night. It has been asserted 
that eels, at the time they are migrating, abstain from food, 
and always are found with their stomachs empty. This, 
however, cannot be invariably the case. A fishmonger in 
Cheltenham has observed that the first consignment he receives 
from the Severn in October are usually gorged with worms, 
and that if they vomit many they invariably die. 
Lastly are the indigenous fresh water forms, consisting of 
the game fish and the coarse fish. Of the first are the trout 
