1.08 CLUPEID.E. 



mense quantities and at a very moderate price immediately 

 after the Herring season is over, it supplies during all the 

 winter months of the year a cheap and agreeable food. 

 Large quantities are eaten ; and, from their rich quality 

 and flavour, the consumption is not solely confined to the 

 lower classes. They are generally cooked while fresh, but 

 are also preserved in various ways. 



The Sprat is included by Linnseus in his Fauna Suecica, 

 and by Professors Nilsson and Reinhardt in their publica- 

 tions on the Fishes of Scandinavia. Dr. Neill says the 

 Sprat is sold in Edinburgh market by the dozen ; and I 

 have received specimens that were taken in the Forth, 

 where they are called Garvie Herrings and Garvies. Dr. 

 George Johnston, in his list of the Fishes of Berwickshire, 

 says the Sprat is common there, and is a favourite food of 

 the Salmon tribe. Farther south, they are most plentiful 

 on the Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and Kentish coasts. I have 

 taken them on the Dorsetshire coast in June, and they were 

 then in roe. They inhabit the deep water round our south- 

 ern coast during the summer months, and may be found in 

 the stomachs of many of our voracious fishes every month in 

 the year. I have taken three Sprats from the stomach of a 

 Whiting, and have caught young Sprats off Ramsgate, Has- 

 tings, and Weymouth, in the months of August and Sep- 

 tember. Like the other species of the genus Clupea, they 

 are wanderers : the shoals are capricious in their movements, 

 and exceedingly variable in their numbers. " Upwards of a 

 ton weight of Sprats was sold in our market last Saturday." 

 (Taunton Courier, January 1832.) " It is nearly fifty 

 years since this useful fish visited the neighbouring coast, and 

 they now appear in exhaustless shoals close in shore on the 

 south coast of Devon." 



The Sprat is occasionally taken in Cornwall ; and in Ire- 

 land, on the coasts of Cork, Dublin, and Belfast. 



