TRAMMELS GR SET-NETS. 299 



only a certain quantity of fish shall pass out at once. In 

 this way all the fish there may be in this long tube of 

 netting, which the free end of the net really is, are worked 

 through it into the vessel's hold. Often, when the sprats 

 are very abundant, many tons of these fish are taken by 

 one of these nets during a few hours. " Stow-boating," as 

 this kind of fishing is called, is carried on both by day and 

 night during the season ; and the quantity of sprats thus 

 taken is so enormous as often to glut the markets, and then 

 the surplus, consisting of hundreds of tons, are sold at very 

 low prices to be used as manure. A smaller net of the 

 same general character, but with a triangular instead of a 

 square mouth, and called a trim-net, is used at the 

 entrance of some small streams running into the Wash, 

 and several kinds of small fish are there taken in it. A 

 still smaller .net of the same description is used on the 

 Thames for catching whitebait, which should be pretty well 

 known now to be nothing but young herrings. Very small 

 sprats are also often caught with them ; but when they are 

 brought to table they all do duty as "whitebait." So 

 difficult, however, is it to get rid of popular delusions that 

 we will venture to prophesy that at any time within the 

 next fifty years, or perhaps longer, the question as to what 

 the whitebait is will be brought up and discussed in the 

 newspapers with as much earnestness as if it were an 

 entirely new problem, and treated in perfect ignorance of 

 its having been shown that, after the most searching 

 examination, no difference can be discovered between very 

 young herrings and the most orthodox whitebait 



TRAMMELS OR SET-NETS. 



Although the nets we are now going to speak of agree 

 in the special character of being anchored or set, there is 



