MR, T. SOUTHWELL ON THE SMELT IN NORFOLK WATERS. 339 
“:i single share in tliis fishery having been known to produce 
I'fiO.” It is probable that much larger quantities are taken now. 
Dr. Lowe informs me that in the river they are caught in con- 
siderable (luantities in “stow-nets” between St. Germans and 
Lynn as they descend from the spawning grounds, at that time, 
of course, they are Avatery and insipid, and utterly unfit for food, 
'i'ho same authority also tells me that enormous quantities of these 
fish are captured in the drains and cuts of the Bedford Level, up 
which they make their way to spawn. They are caught by draw- 
nets, and occasionally some tons of fish are secured at once. Some 
of these contain roe, others are shotten. They are disposed of 
chiefly in the neighbouring towns and villages. In the river Ouse 
itself, near Lynn, very large numbers of young Smelts are taken 
in “stow-nets ” set for bait ; as these nets are in constant use, the 
destruction, although unintentional, must bo very great, and this 
practice, as also the wholesale capture on the spawning-ground, 
ought, if possible, to bo stopped. Below the town of Lynn, many 
Smelts are taken in stake-nets set in the tidal shallows, and this 
is, of course, a perfectly legitimate fishery. The season for 
taking these fish in the river Ouse, and its tributaries, is from 
1st September to 31st March, and the mesh of the nets used is 
restricted by the Bye Laws of the Norfolk and Suffolk Fisheries Act 
( 1 877) to five-eights of an inch from knot to knot, measured when wet. 
Sir Thomas Browne speaks of the great plenty of Smelts, or, as 
he calls them, “ Spirinches,” about Lynn; also of “a small fish, 
called a Priame, answering in taste and shape a Smelt, and perhaps 
are but the younger sort thereof,” rendering it probable that even 
in the second half of the seventeenth century, the same wasteful 
practice of taking the immature fish on their way down to the sea, 
prevailed as at present. 
At both Yarmouth and Lowestoft large quantities of Smelts are 
taken annually. In the autumn, occasionally good sport may be 
had angling from the piers and in the harbours. Shrimps being 
generally used as bait ; but the greater number at the latter place 
are taken in the waters above the town as high as Mutford Lock. 
At certain states of the tide, that is about the last hour and a half 
of the flood, and the first hour of ebb. Smelts are often taken 
by the drag-net in the sea at Gorleston ; but the great fishery is in 
tlie shallows and creeks of Breydon. 
