FISHES 503 



length, supported on a framework, and held by the fishermen 

 1 in an easy stream, in the ebbing and flowing of the tide.' The 

 fishermen draw lots for their respective places in the estuary. 

 Time was when the fishermen of this ' mean village/ as it was 

 called in 1785, obtained a supply of Salmon by striking the fish 

 with 'leesters' in the tideway. 1 Fish must have been very 

 plentiful in the middle of the eighteenth century, if we can 

 credit the statements made by ' Philtopographus ' in the Gentle- 

 man's Magazine of 1755. ' Salmon/ observes this anonymous 

 writer, ' at their markets sells from three halfpence to twopence 

 a pound ; but the people have so little notion of dressing it to 

 advantage that they throw away the livers and eat the fish without 

 having so much as a little melted butter for sauce. If any remain 

 unsold after the market is over, they cut it into pieces and salt 

 it, putting it up close in a pot or earthen vessel, to be eaten as 

 winter provision with potatoes or parsnips. 2 If the poor 

 Bowness fishermen really sold their fish for such a price as 

 ' Philtopographus ' states, they must have been less alive to 

 business than some of their neighbours. The Workington men 

 sent their fish 'up to London upon Horses, which, changing 

 often, go Night and Day without Intermission, and, as they say, 

 out-go the Post, for that the Fish come very sweet and good to 

 London, where the extraordinary price they yield, from 2s. 6d. 

 to 4s. per Pound, pays very well for the carriage. They do the 

 same from Carlisle.' 3 Clarke stated, in 1787, that Salmon never 

 entered Derwentwater ; or again, ' Salmon come to the foot of 

 Ulleswater to spawn, but never enter it.' Salmon used to enter 

 Ulleswater, and Haweswater too, in Clarke's time, and would do 

 so now if they could gain entrance. Indeed, it has long been 

 well known that Salmon enter several of the lakes. Thus 

 Pennant wrote of the Derwent, that Salmon ' come up the river 

 from the sea about Michaelmas, and force their way through both 

 lakes as far as Borrowdale. They had lately been on their 

 return, but the water near the [Ouze] bridge proving too shallow 



1 The ' leester ' employed at this time was a staff of ash about fourteen 

 feet long, armed at the end with three barbed spikes. 



2 Gentleman's Magazine, 1755, pp. 315-317. 



3 Defoe, Tour thro' Great Britain, 1769, seventh ed. vol. iii. p. 321. 



