Abstract
MR. LAURENCE WELLS, who has from time to time contributed articles to the Southend newspapers based on the notes of the late Mr. James Murie, has recently published two more, the “Whitebait Industry” and the “Spratting Industry” (Southend Pictorial Telegraph, April 14 and May 24, 1934). Nearly two hundred years have passed since whitebait was first fished for, and the industry was much more important a hundred years ago than it is to-day. There are, however, signs of revival in the trade, and now there are more whitebait in the river than the merchants can dispose of, although one hundred and fifty years ago it was prophesied that within ten years the river would be denuded of fry. Sprat-fishing is apparently on the decline, and the only salvation for the Thames spratters is the canning industry which is here described. Mr. Wells goes into the history of both fisheries and the methods of capture, giving details of the catches of whitebait, which mainly consists of the fry of herrings and sprats but may contain also about twenty other species of young fishes. He also describes the proper way to cook it, and how to distinguish the herring of whitebait size from that of the sprat.
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Thames Estuary Fisheries. Nature 134, 318 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/134318b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/134318b0