98 SALMONID^ OF BRITAIN. 



An experiment of permitting kelts to be destroyed in one river for a single 

 year, and ascertaining the effect on the stock of salmon and grilse the succeeding 

 season, appears well worthy of a fair trial, provided such could be done without 

 entailing greater difficulties as regards the disposal of the captured fish, &c. as I 

 have already pointed out. 



It has likewise been proposed that people should be permitted to kill and eat 

 these kelts, which otherwise probably become lost as food. But prior to such a 

 proceeding being sanctioned, it might not be amiss to inquire whether they would 

 be wholesome. Some observations tend to prove that occasionally they are not 

 so ;* while it must be evident to anyone who studies our fish markets that a 

 large number of kippered salmon are of this description and have not been 

 accused of entailing unpleasant results. 



It has been remarked that kelts may mend in fresh water, and certainly 

 they must do so in the land-locked rivers. Brown, Stormontjield Experiments, 

 pp. Ill, 112, recorded that a male kipper, no. 78, was caught April 1st, 1861, by 

 Mr. Evans above Logierait : it weighed 13^ lb. ; May 4th, 1861, it was taken 

 again by Mr. Brown on the Stanley water, and weighed 16 lb., having evidently 

 improved in condition in the fresh water. 



In Parliamentary language the terms " unclean" and "unseasonable," as well 

 as " foul " fish are mentioned and their destruction prohibited, but much discussion 

 has taken place concerning the meaning of these phrases. Probably the first 

 decision respecting what is a "clean" or "unclean" salmon was given in 

 December, 1885, by Mr. Fowler, who considered that a " baggit," or gravid but 

 tinspawned fish, comes under the term, " unclean." 



We are told, after the penalties for taking uncleanf or unseasonable salmon 



* Br. Gerald Boate, writing from Ireland in 1645, asserted that the leprosy was caused " through 

 the foul gluttony of the inhabitants in the unwholesome devouring of foul salmon when they are 

 out of season, which is after they have east their spawn, upon which they do not only grow very 

 weak and flabby, but so unwholesome as it would loathe any man to see them." Biickland related 

 how a water-bailiff, who was a strong, healthy man, ate a portion of one, and was made so ill that 

 he was confined to his bed for two days. 



t In the Report of the Salmon Commissioners appointed in 1860 to inquire into the Salmon 

 Fisheries of England and Wales, and consequent upon which report a Salmon Act was passed, it 

 was observed (p. xvii), " With reference to the capture of unseasonable fish, whether in aspent or 

 spawning state, when they are unsuitable if not unwholesome for food," i.e., clearly showing the 

 views they held on the subject. Paterson (The Fishery Laws of the United Kingdom, 1863, p. 274), 

 referring to unclean fish in Ireland, gave the following : " If any person at any time wilfully 

 take, kill, destroy, expose for sale, or have in his possession any red, black, foul, unclean or 

 unseasonable sahnon or trout," &c. (13 and 14 Vic). Here it is evident that unspawned fish would 

 come under the head of unclean fish. Eussel {The Salmon, 1863) remarked of a river having " got 

 rid in any considerable degree of the foul fish, spawned and unspawned." In Chambers's 

 Encyclopcedia (? 1865) we read, " As the time of spawning approaches salmon undergo consider- 

 able changes of colour, besides the change of form already noticed in the snout of the male. The 

 former brilliancy of the hues gives place to a general duskiness, approaching to blackness in the 

 females, much tinged with red in the males, and the cheeks of the males become marked with 

 orange stripes. Salmon in this state are 'foul fish,' being considered unfit for the table, and the 

 killing of them is prohibited by British laws." The Irish Salmon Fisheries Act enacts that if 

 any person shall take, kill, or have in his possession " any red, black, foul, unclean, or unseason- 

 able salmon," such person shall forfeit, &o. Oke, Salmon Fishery Acts, described an unclean fish 

 " as a fish that had not migrated to the sea after spawning." " A Looker-on," in The Field, 

 December 26th, 1885, remarked, " According to my reading of the law the term (unclean) included 

 gravid fish that are about to spawn as well as spent fish that have spawned." Mr. Willis-Bund 

 (Salmon Problems, 1885) defined an unclean fish as one "unfit to be taken, wherever and 

 whenever caught, even if during the open season ; thus a kelt would be an unclean salmon." 

 Mr. 0. Pennell (Badminton Series, 1885, p. 114) observed of salmon that " shortly before spawning 

 and whilst returning to the sea as kelts or spent fish salmon are unfit for food, and their capture 

 is illegal." The Editor of The Field remarked respecting unclean salmon, in a footnote 

 (December, 1885), that " we are inclined to think that it is an open question, and very much would 

 depend on the view a magistrate took of it. A baggit can hardly be held to be a clean fish — we do 

 not consider it so — though it is quite possible that an objection might be raised to its being 

 held to be a foul one." E. 0. T. (Field, December 26th, 1885) observed that " the law enacts that 

 all fish caught by rod in the Aberdeenshire Dee up to October Blst are clean, except kelts or spent 

 fish." ..." Females full of spawn are killed in the Eiver Dee every October that are clearly unfit 

 for food. The male fish also, though not spent, are red and mueh deteriorated by the long 

 sojourn in fresh water. They also, in point of fact, are unclean." 



