112 Smelt Breeding Grounds. 



spawn, and also find plenteous supply of food in minor 

 crustaceans, diminutive fish brood, &c. 



Thus in their peregrinations they enter the Yantlet Creek, 

 St. Mary's and Egypt Bay, Cliff and Higham Creeks, indenting 

 the Kent shore ; whilst Hadleigh Ray, Holehaven, Shellhaven, 

 and the creeks and guts about Mucking Flats, represent places 

 where the smelts visit the Essex side. Meantime, a body of 

 these mature fish go right up the Thames into the fresh water 

 areas. Some years they go higher than others. A regular smelt 

 fishery at London, with its 20 to 00 boats a-fishing (Yarrell), is 

 a thing of the past. Still every other season we hear of their 

 capture, even beyond the city for example in 1868 at Kew 

 Bridge and Teddington, in 1898 at Richmond, and in 1900 

 beyond Black wall.* 



Reverting to the estuary, the most noted strip of ground 

 where they seem to congregate about spawning time is along 

 the Blyth Sands, from Lower Hope Point down to the Grain 

 Spit. Here there is a regular winter and spring fishery, which 

 is nearly all carried on by Southend boats (see Sect. VI. 

 Fisheries No. 4). The spawning places must be close by, for 

 females with ripe ova and males in full milt are caught abun- 

 dantly in the area in question. On the Essex side, immediately 

 opposite, they are much scarcer. Nevertheless we have found 

 them tolerably numerous during the winter in the Ray Creek 

 inside Canvey Island Spit. Here, for the winter at least, they 

 appear continuously resident, and of various ages, from less 

 than half to the fully adult fish. 



Reviewing a series of sometimes daily observations, made 

 between November and May, and in which the smelts were 

 measured in their extreme length, and the sex and nature of 

 food ascertained, the following may serve as an abstract. 

 Their sizes (those with pronounced smelt characters) ranged 



* The Field (22nd April, 1890), in noticing members of the Lond. C. C. having 

 partaken of a dish of smelts caught at Westminster, gently hints a share of credit is 

 due to the Old Board, the Council's predecessors (the belied Metrop. B. of Works), who 

 inaugurated the steps towards subsequent cleansing of the river. 



