ON THE ENGLISH FISHERIES. ie 
The fish remain in salt for five or six weeks, during which a 
quantity of oil, salt, and water drains from them into wells cut 
in the centre of the stone floor on which they are laid. The oil 
sells for a considerable sum, and the refuse forms good manure, 
so that nothing is lost. 
Sprats AND EE.s. 
As regards the sprat—insignificant fish as it is—yet it has 
given rise to at least one proverb, and it puts about £100,000 a 
year into the pockets of the London dealers. Almost incredible 
numbers are consumed yearly by the poor of London. It is 
chiefly caught on the Essex coast; and the mode of fishing is 
peculiar—called stow boat fishing. A dish of sprats, I believe, 
is always put on the table at the annual feast in the Guildhall 
London on Lord Mayor’s Day, which is the orthodox period 
for the opening of the sprat season. 
I have never seen the Stow Boat Net, but Mr. Yarrell des- 
eribes it as having “‘ two horizontal beams: the lower one, 22 
feet long, is suspended a few feet above the ground; the upper 
one, a foot shorter in length, is suspended about six fathoms (36 
feet) above the lower one. To these two beams, or balks, as they 
are called, a large bag net is fixed, towards the end of which, 
called the hose, the mesh is fine enough to stop very small fry 
The mouth of the net, twenty-two feet wide and thirty-six feet 
high, is kept square by hanging it to a Cable and heavy Anchor 
at the four ends of the beams. The net is set under the boats 
bottom; and a rope from each end of the upper beam, brought 
up over each bow of the boat, raises and sustains the beam, and 
keeps the mouth of the net always open, and so moored that 
the tide carries everything into it. A strong rope, which runs 
through an iron ring at the middle of the upper beam, and is 
made fast to the lower beam, brings both beams parallel, thus 
closing the mouth of the net when it is required to be raised.” 
The system of stow boat fishing is a most destructive one, 
and altogether prohibited in France. In favourable seasons 
enormous quantities of sprats are sold for manure. Forty 
VOL. VI. PT. I. J 
