THE SALMON. 257 



The largest salmon taken in the United Kingdom with 

 the fly is stated to have weighed 57 Ibs. 



The salmon has been subject to certain laws from a very 

 early date. In the days of Howel the Good, who died in 

 948, there were three common hunts (see " Hunting Laws 

 of Cambria"), a stag, a swarm of bees, and a salmon. 

 Salmon are called a common hunt because when taken in 

 a net, or with a fish-spear, or in any other manner, if any 

 person whatever comes up before they are divided, he is 

 entitled to an equal share of them with the person who 

 caught them, if it be in common water. 



In Holinshed's "Chronicles, England," vol. i., Book iii. 

 chap. 3, in an account of the fish in our rivers, it says: 

 " Besides the salmon, therefore, which are not to be taken 

 from the middest of September to the middest of November, 

 and are verie plentiful in our greatest rivers, and their 

 young store are not to be touched from mid April unto 

 midsummer, we have trout, barbel, grilse, powt, chewin, 

 pike, goodgen, smelt, perch, &c., whose preservation is 

 provided by verie sharpe lawes." It says, in giving the 

 names of the fish, also, that a salmon is the first year a 

 gravellin, and commonly as big as a herring, the second a 

 salmon peal, the third a pug, and the fourth a salmon. 

 The spawning-time is mentioned as much earlier than at 

 present : " The salmon in harvest-time cometh up into the 

 small rivers where the water is most shallow, and there 

 the male and female, rubbing their wombe one against 

 another, they shed their spawne ; if they touch anie of 

 their full fellows during the time of this leannesse, the 

 same side which they touch will likewise become leane, 

 whereby it cometh to pass, that a salmon is oft scene to 

 be fat on one side of the chine and leane on the other." 



And as to their leaping at falls : " Such as assay often to 

 leap and cannot get over, do brooze themselves and become 

 measelled and the people set up a cauldron of hot water 

 upon the shallows in hopes to catch the fattest, as such by 

 reason of their weight do oftenest leape short." 



"The Donne and the Dea," he says, "give the greatest 

 salmon that are to be had in Scotland ; and of the River 



R 



