The Harvest of the Sea / A contribution to the natural and economic history of the British food fishes

by James Glass Bertram

WHITEBAIT GROUND NEAR QUEENSFERRY.

As another example of our ignorance of fish life, I may instance that diminutive member of the Clupea family—the whitebait. This fish, which is so much better known gastronomically than it is scientifically, was thought at one time to be found only in the Thames, but it is much more generally diffused than is supposed. It is found for certain, and in great plenty, in three rivers—viz., the Thames, the Forth, and the Hamble. I have also seen it taken out of the Humber, not far from Hull, and have heard of its being caught near the mouth of the Deveron, on the Moray Firth; and likewise of its being found in plentiful quantities off the Isle of Wight. Mr. Stewart, the natural history draughtsman, tells me also that he has seen it taken in bushels on many parts of the Clyde, and that at certain seasons, while engaged in taking coal-fish, he has found them so stuffed with whitebait that by holding the large fish by the tail the little silvery whitebait have fallen out in handfuls. The whitebait has become celebrated from the mode in which it is cooked, and the excuse it affords to Londoners for an afternoon’s excursion, as also from its forming a famous dish at the annual fish-dinner of her Majesty’s ministers; but truth compels me to state that there is nothing in whitebait beyond its susceptibility of taking on a flavour from the skill of the cook. It is poor feeding when compared to a dish of sprats, or (an illegal) fry of young salmon; and it has been said in joke that an expert cook can make up capital whitebait by means of flour and oil! But to eat whitebait is a fashion of the season, and the well-served tables of the Greenwich and Blackwall taverns, with their pleasant outlook to the river, and their inducements of chablis and other choice wines and comestibles, are undoubtedly very attractive, whether the persons partaking of these dainties be ministers of state or merchants’ clerks.

The whitebait, however, if I cannot honestly praise it as a table fish, is particularly interesting as an object of natural history, there having been from time to time, as in the case of most other fish, some very learned disputes as to where it comes from, how it grows, and whether or not it be a distinct member of the herring family or the young of some other fish. The whitebait—which, although found in rivers, is strictly speaking a sea fish—is a tiny animal, varying in length, when taken for cooking purposes, from two to four inches, and has never been seen of a greater length than five inches. In appearance it is pale and silvery, with a greenish back, and ought to be cooked immediately after being caught; indeed if, like Lord Lovat’s salmon, whitebait could leap out of the water into the frying-pan, it would be a decided advantage to those dining upon it, for if kept even for a few hours it becomes greatly deteriorated, and, as a consequence, requires all the more cooking to bring the flavour up to the proper pitch of gastronomic excellence. In fact, it is necessary to keep the fish alive in a tub of water, and to ladle them out for the process of cooking as the guests may arrive. Perhaps, as all fish are chameleon-like in reflecting not only the colour of their abode, but what they feed on as well, the supposed fine flavour of whitebait, so far as it is not conferred upon that fish by the cook, may arise from the matters held in solution in the Thames water, and so the result from the corrupt source of the supply may be a quicker than ordinary decay. The waters of the Forth at the whitebait ground, of which I have given a slight sketch, are clean and clear, a little way above Inchgarvie, where the sprat-fishing is usually carried on, and the whitebait taken there are in consequence slightly different in colour, and greatly so in taste, from those obtained in the Thames; in fact, all kinds of fish, including salmon, are able to live and thrive in the Firth of Forth. It is long since the refined salmon forsook the Thames, but then salmon are very delicate in their eating, and at once take on the surrounding flavour, whatever that may be. Creditable attempts are now being made to re-stock the Thames, especially the upper waters, with more valuable fish than are at present contained in that river, but whether these attempts will be successful yet remains to be seen. I have been watching with great interest what is being done by Mr. Frank Buckland and others; but salmon I fear cannot at present live in the Thames. To thrive successfully, that fish must have access to the sea, and how a salmon can ever penetrate to the salt water with the river in its present state is a problem that must be left for future solution; however, as Mr. Frank Buckland very truthfully remarks, if the salmon are not first sent down the Thames they cannot be expected ever to come up that noble river.

Returning, however, to our whitebait, it may be stated that that fish was once thought to be the young of the shad, which is itself an interesting fish, coming from the sea to deposit its spawn in the fresh waters. The shad was at one time thought to be the patriarch of the herring tribe; and it was said, in the days when the old theory about the migration of the herring was believed in, that the great shoals which came to this country from the icy seas of the high latitudes were led on their wonderful tour by a few thousands of this gigantic fish. Pennant conjectured that whitebait was an independent species, but so difficult is it to investigate such facts in the water that it was not till many years had elapsed that the question was set at rest so far as to determine at any rate that whitebait were not the young of either the Alice or the Twaite shad, which, by the by, is a coarse and insipid fish—

“Alusæ, crackling on the embers, are

Of wretched poverty the insipid fare.”

Some investigations I have in hand may settle the question whether or not the whitebait be herring-fry or a distinct fish. As yet I have never at any season of the year found an example of whitebait containing either milt or roe, although it is said that examples may be taken full of both during the early winter months. This, of course, is not conclusive evidence of its being the young of some other fish, although it would go some length in proving it a distinct species; but I need not enter further into the controversy at present, as it is not of much interest to the general reader, except to say that whitebait, whatever species it may belong to, comes up from the sea, where it has been spawned, to feed in the river. I may mention that this fish cannot now be taken so far up the river Thames as formerly. Whitebait are now usually caught between Gravesend and Woolwich, and the fish are in their best season between April and September. It is not unusual for sea fish to ascend our rivers: the eel, as I have already narrated, spawns in the sea, and the young of that fish ascend to the fresh water, in which they live till they are seized with the migratory instinct. The parentage of the whitebait will be discovered in the sea, and the changes undergone by fish during their growth are so varied and curious that it would be difficult to predict what the little whitebait may turn out to be—whiting perhaps! After being told that the silver eel is the produce of a black beetle, and knowing that a tadpole is an infantile frog, and that the zœa ultimately becomes a crab, we need not wonder if we are some day told that whitebait becomes in time metamorphosed into some other entirely different fish!

Besides whitebait there are other mysterious fish—especially in Scotland—which are well worthy of being alluded to. An idea prevails in Scotland that the vendace of Lochmaben and the powan of Lochlomond are really herrings forced into fresh water, and slightly altered by the circumstances of a new dwelling-place, change of food, and other causes. One learned person lately ascribed the presence of sea fish in fresh water to the great wave which had at one time passed over the country. But no doubt the real cause is that these peculiar fish were brought to those lakes ages ago by monks or other persons who were adepts in the piscicultural art.

LOCHMABEN.
The home of the Vendace.