The season for catching salmon commences towards the end of the year, but the principal capture is in the month of July; and instances have occurred in which more than 1000 fish have been caught at one haul of a net. Fresh salmon are frequently sent to London from the northern rivers packed in ice. The Severn salmon are earlier in season than those of any other river in England, though not so early as what are caught in some parts of Scotland and Ireland. The Thames salmon are principally taken near Isleworth, and are sold at a most extravagant rate in London. In Ireland the most considerable salmon fishery is as Cranna, on the river Ban, about a mile and a half from Coleraine. At a single haul of one of the nets, about the year 1776, there were taken as many as 1356 fish; this circumstance was so extraordinary as to be recorded in the town books of Coleraine. In the Severn, Trent, and some other northern rivers of England, no salmon measuring less than eighteen inches from the eye to the middle of the tail is allowed to be caught; nor any whatever betwixt the eighth of September and the eleventh of November (except in the Ribble, where they may be caught betwixt the first of January and fifteenth of September), under the penalty of 5l. and forfeiture of the fish. And no salmon of less weight than six pounds are permitted to be sent by fishmongers to their agents in London, under a similar penalty. When these fish, about the beginning of May, are five or six inches in length, they are called _salmon smelts_, and, when they have attained the weight of from about six to nine pounds, they have the name of _gilse_. Salmon are a very general and favourite article of food. When eaten fresh, they are tender, flaky, and nutritive; but are thought to be difficult of digestion. The flesh of the salmon is of red colour, and the beauty of its appearance is increased by soaking slices of it in fresh water before they are cooked. Immediately after the salmon have deposited their spawn they become so flabby and bad as to be unfit for food. Raw salmon is a favourite dish with even the first nobility of Stockholm, insomuch that they seldom give a great dinner in which this food is not presented on the table. It is prepared by merely cutting the fish into slices, putting these into salt, and, when salted, leaving them for three days in a wooden dish, with a little water. In this state it is said to be very delicious eating. The modes of curing salmon are various, but these are chiefly by _drying_, _smoking_, _salting_, and _pickling_. Near the bay of Castries (in the Strait of Saghalier) the Tartars tan the _skins_ of large salmon, and convert them into a very supple kind of clothing.