66 FISHES AND FISHING. 



cated, that salmon were formerly very plentiful in 

 the Thames ; and the fishermen, within my recollec- 

 tion, added very materially to their incomes by the 

 capture and sale of that noble fish, some of which 

 were very large, I perfectly remember rowing ofi" to 

 see one in the year 1789, which was enveloped in 

 nets between two punts, kept apart by short spars 

 lashed head and stern. This fish was caught near 

 Laleham, and the weight was said to be seventy 

 pounds. Salter, in one of his publications, confirms 

 the fact, and states that it was sold to Howel, a fish- 

 monger in the Minories, opposite America Square, for 

 one shilling a pound]; shewing, by the price, the great 

 plenty there were of them. Formerly, in walking by 

 the side of the Thames on a summer's evening, any- 

 where above Sunbury, up to Windsor, you would see 

 numbers of large salmon leap out of the water by the 

 side of the osier aits, either in sport, or after flies. I^ow 

 the locks and weirs are so unscientifically constructed, 

 that if salmon were to run the gauntlet of passing the 

 pool, their further passage upward would be com- 

 pletely obstructed by these badly contrived erections. 

 The salmon fishery of the Thames was anciently of 

 very great importance to the inhabitants of the 

 parishes upon the banks of that river, who appear to 

 have had each an assigned ^^ room or rome'* or 

 bounds for their respective fishery. In the church- 



