276 BRITISH FISHERIES 



than those which are fixed by law ; but most kinds 

 of sea-fish are marketable before they have attained 

 the biological lower limit of maturity. 



Nearly every method of sea-fishing involves 

 the capture and destruction of immature fish, and 

 I can only allude very briefly to those which are 

 more noteworthy. Sprat and whitebait fishing 

 are, no doubt, responsible for the greatest absolute 

 destruction, though it is probable that neither 

 method is so wasteful as several other modes of 

 fishing. Fishing for sprats and whitebait is carried 

 on at different parts of the British coasts, but the 

 fisheries in the Thames, the Firth of Forth, and 

 the Solway are the most important. " Bag-nets " 

 or " stow-nets " of peculiar construction, and 

 often of enormous size, are used in the Thames, 

 while large seine-nets with small meshes are used 

 in the Forth. The catch made with such nets 

 consists of a mixture, in varying proportions, of 

 sprats and herrings, with occasionally other small 

 fishes. These two species, the sprat and the 

 herring, 1 were confused with one another for a 

 long time, for, though it was well known that 

 they were distinct fishes, no attempt was made to 

 analyse what is called "whitebait" until 1861, 

 when a committee 2 of the Scottish Fishery Board 

 made an investigation of the subject. This was 

 repeated at a later date, and the results of the 



1 Clupea sprattus and Clupea harcnga respectively. 



2 Vice-Admiral Dundas and (then) Dr Lyon Playfair. 



