THE CHAR AND THE SMELT 279 



or rose colour, with silvery reflections ; but owing to the 

 absence of pigment in the scales, the fish is semi-transparent, 

 the bones and internal organs being visible through the skin. 

 In size the smelt seldom or never exceeds eight inches in length. 

 The flesh is exceedingly delicate, with a pecuHar flavour unlike 

 that of any other fish. 



Little do townspeople understand of its excellence, for 

 smelts are more perishable than most fish. To eat them in 

 perfection one should rise betimes on a fair morning in October, 

 and watch the nets being drawn ashore. To the distance of 

 nearly one hundred yards the gentle breeze wafts the fragrance 

 of the catch ; fill your basket with the spoil, carry it straight to 

 the kitchen, have them fried without cleaning, and sit down 

 and enjoy such a breakfast as all the resources of the Mansion 

 House could not furnish. 



Formerly, smelts — or sparlings, as they are called in 

 Scotland — were reckoned as white fish, fair booty for anybody 

 who chose to net them. Science, however, having assigned to 

 them their true place among migratory fish of the salmon kind, 

 they come under the provisions of the Salmon-Fisheries Acts, 

 and form part of the several' salmon-fishings in the waters they 

 frequent. But in consequence of no close-time being provided 

 for them, they are netted during the spawning season, which 

 has resulted in the ruin of a remunerative industry in some 

 rivers, such as the Annan and the Nith. It is gratifying to 

 observe that the Royal Commission on Salmon-Fisheries in their 

 report just issued (August, 1902) recommend the establishment 

 of a yearly close-time. In the Cree, one of the Solway rivers, 

 the salmon-fishings passed in 1900 under the management of 

 an angling association, the members of which were impressed 

 by the destruction wrought by the small-meshed nets of the 

 smelt-fishers among the smolts of salmon and sea-trout de- 

 scending to the sea in April and May. Now'this includes the 

 period when the smelts ascend to spawn ; gravid smelts and 

 migrating smolts were hauled out indiscriminately, and tens of 



