FISHES AND FISHING, 147 



able distance around, and there were a great number 

 of persons, men, women, and children, dipping them 

 out by means of fine sieves, baskets covered with very 

 coarse bunting or muslin, or other contrivances, and 

 depositing them in pails, pans, and washing tubs ; 

 many large ones I saw more than half filled. 



I had some put into thin batter, and cooked in a 

 good quantity of boiling lard, which is then about 

 600 degrees of heat, and they were excellent. They 

 must be still more delicate if cooked in the manner 

 white bait are, which one of our first luminaries of 

 chemistry told me was as follows : a deep vessel of 

 loiling lard is kept in that state, in the kitchens of 

 houses which have a great demand for this luxury, 

 the quantity required is placed in a vessel of wire, 

 and let down gently into the boiling lard, and the 

 fish come up fully cooked and quite dry. The above 

 elvers are about two to three inches long, from the 

 thickness of a small straw to a large one, and the 

 quantity of these fish continued quite as great during 

 three or four days. In the river Parrot, Somersetshire, 

 which runs up through Bridgewater, they are found 

 in great abundance ; also in the Mersey, about War- 

 burton, and near Northwich they are in such plenty 

 that the farmers catch them to feed their pigs. 



Dr. Brookes states that the young of the conger eel 

 are taken in the Severn, about Gloucester and Tewkes- 



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