204 CLUPEID.E. 



are few entertainments more popular or more agreeable than a 

 Whitebait dinner. 



The fishery is continued frequently as late as September ; 

 and specimens of young fish of the year, four and five inches 

 long, are then not uncommon, but mixed, even at this late 

 period of the season, with others of very small size, as though 

 the roe had continued to be deposited throughout the sum- 

 mer ; yet the parent fish are not caught, and are believed by 

 the fishermen not to come higher up than the estuary, where, 

 at this season of the year, nets sufficiently small in the mesh 

 to stop them are not in much use. 



The particular mode of fishing for Whitebait, by which 

 a constant supply during the season is obtained, was formerly 

 considered destructive to the fry of fishes generally, and great 

 pains were taken to prevent it by those to whom the conser- 

 vancy of the fishery of the Thames was entrusted ; but since 

 the history and habits of this species have been better under- 

 stood, and it has been ascertained that no other fry of any 

 value swim with them, which I can aver, the men have 

 been allowed to continue this part of their occupation with 

 little or no disturbance, though still using an unlawful net. 



When investigating the subject of the Whitebait, I was 

 occasionally engaged in witnessing the mode by which such 

 numbers were taken. The mouth of the net is by no means 

 large, measuring only about three feet square in extent ; but 

 the mesh of the hose, or bag-end of the net, is very small. 

 The boat is moored in the tide-way, where the water is from 

 twenty to thirty feet deep ; and the net with its wooden 

 frame-work is fixed to the side of the boat, as shown in 

 the vignette at page 207. The tail of the hose, swimming 

 loose, is from time to time handed into the boat, the end 

 untied, and its contents shaken out. The wooden frame 

 forming the mouth of the net does not dip more than four 

 feet below the surface of the water ; and, except an occa- 



