SMELT. 131 



till Good Friday. Formerly, the Thames from Wands- 

 worth to Putney-bridge, and from thence upwards to the 

 situation of the present suspension-bridge at Hammersmith, 

 produced abundance of Smelts, and from thirty to forty 

 boats might then be seen working together; but very few 

 are now to be taken, the state of the water, it is believed, 

 preventing the fish advancing so high up. The particular 

 cucumber-like smell of this fish is well known ; and it is very 

 considerably more powerful when they are first taken out of 

 the water. 



The Smelt is generally in great request from its delicate 

 and peculiar flavour. This quality, coupled with the cir- 

 cumstance of the fish passing six or seven months of the 

 year in fresh water, has induced two or three experiments 

 to retain it in ponds, one of which was attended with com- 

 plete success, and the attempts might be multiplied with 

 advantage. Colonel Meynell, of Yarm in Yorkshire, kept 

 Smelts for four years in a fresh-water pond having no com- 

 munication with the sea : they continued to thrive, and 

 propagated abundantly. They were not affected by freez- 

 ing ; as the whole pond, which covered about three acres, was 

 so frozen over as to admit of skating. When the pond was 

 drawn, the fishermen of the Tees considered that they had 

 never seen a finer lot of Smelts. There was no loss of fla- 

 vour or quality. 



From the point of the lower jaw to the end of the gill- 

 cover, the length is, as compared to the body alone, as one 

 to three ; the depth of the body not equal to the length of 

 the head : the dorsal fin commences half-way between the 

 point of the nose and the end of the fleshy portion of the 

 tail ; the first ray of this fin less than half the length of 

 the second, which is as long as the third ; the second and 

 third are the longest rays in the fin, nearly as high as the 

 body of the fish is deep, and as long again as the base of the 



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