ENGLAND AND WALES 249 



the implements were to be seen in recent years. 

 The news-sheets record exceptional catches at 

 intervals through two centuries. In 1754 it is 

 mentioned that the take of fish at London Bridge 

 was so great that the price fell to 6d. a pound. 

 Twelve years later we read that 'there was never 

 known a greater plenty of salmon in the river,' and 

 that one hundred and thirty Thames fish were sent 

 to Billingsgate Market in one day. 



" Finally, there is ' an account of all the salmon 

 caught at Boulter's Lock and contiguous parts of 

 the Thames from 1794 to 1821' set out in Mr. 

 Venable's Records of Buckinghamshire. That was a 

 memorandum made by a man who fished the reach 

 for the purpose of profit. His chronicle is that of 

 a declining industry, it is true ; but so late as 1 801 

 he took sixty-six salmon, weighing nearly 1200 Ibs. 

 His last catch, of two fish, was in 1821. By that time 

 the salmon had become scarce. One, caught near 

 Windsor, was sold to the King for a guinea a pound. 

 Yarrell records the last Thames salmon that came 

 under his notice as having been taken in 1833. 



"From these and other records it is clear that 

 there was a very rapid decline in the salmon fishings 

 of the Thames during the last few years of the 

 eighteenth century and the first quarter of the 

 nineteenth, ending in the complete disappearance of 

 the fish somewhere about 1830. The causes of 

 extinction must, therefore, be sought for in that 

 period. There is no evidence of serious pollution of 

 the river at that time, and there is little doubt that 



