82 Migration of Sprats. 



in Pegwell Bay. In such evidence, unfortunately, memory and 

 bias may have served rather than reliable statistics ; for the 

 river and estuarine fishermen were then at loggerheads, un- 

 wisely opposing one another's methods of fishing, which time 

 has changed and much modified their views thereon. 



The subject of the migration of sprats has not hitherto 

 received so much attention as that of the herring, yet both are 

 distinctly of nomadic habit. From our informants we glean 

 that the adult sprats visiting South Anglia come almost simul- 

 taneously with herring shoals from the North Sea about October. 

 Usually they appear to strike shore either a little north of or 

 somewhere opposite Southwold and Aldeburgh in Suffolk. 

 Thence, with erratic wandering, they trend southwards along 

 the Essex and Kent coasts in November and December ; branch 

 shoals heading up the several estuaries. In short, they seem 

 to follow the course of the strong tidal current from the north 

 which sweeps into the great bight of the Thames estuary. 



Sections of the huge shoals would seem to progress towards 

 the Straits and English Channel, for Deal, Dover and Folkestone 

 drifters not infrequently receive full share in their nets. So 

 far as their approach to the Thames is concerned, it is vouched 

 for by those who pursue the winter avocations of spratting, that 

 they never know where to look for the advance shoals. Some 

 seasons they are first met with in one Channel, then another 

 year in quite a different one. Moreover, on occasions, strangely 

 enough, the first indications of them have been near the 

 Chapman Light, viz., quite in the most western portion of 

 the estuary. 



Betimes the golden opportunity of big and paying catches 

 has first been made in the neighbourhood of the Wallet ; at 

 another season around the Princes, the Queen's Channel, and 

 the Girdler would seem to be their earliest gregarious centre, 

 or even more shorewards towards Kent, in the South, the Grore 

 and the Copperas Channels. The more observant fishers, how- 

 ever, incline to think the balance is in favour of the common 

 route being through the Swins and Deeps towards the Oaze. 



