SPRAT. Ill 



and although some are preserved by smoking, in some measure 

 as the Herring is prepared, and they are even imported from 

 abroad in that condition. Yet the quantity taken sometimes 

 very much exceeds the sale for any of these purposes; and 

 it has therefore grown into a common practice to purchase 

 them for manuring the land, and the nets have even been 

 put to sea with no other view than thus employing the 

 produce. Sprats are not usually sold by number or Aveight, 

 but by measure. The nets are employed at from close to the 

 land to the distance of about three miles, and the price 

 varies from sixpence to eighteen-pence the bushel. Mr. 

 Mitchell informs us that in December, 1861, in Scotland, 

 when Sprats were abundant, they were sold at from two 

 shillings and sixpence a bushel, at a time when the price of 

 Herrings was five shillings the hundred. 



A large Sprat may be five or six inches in length, but the 

 more usual size is tliree or four inches; the body compressed, 

 deeper than in the Herring and Pilchard, but tapering forward 

 towards the head and mouth. Under jaAv longest, both having 

 very small teeth; mystache running back to the eye; top of 

 the head flattened; eye rather large. Gill-covers as if divided 

 into several pieces. Scales on the body easily lost. Along 

 the belly a ridge with prominent serrations, the segments 

 thirty-five to the vent, which structure will distinguish the 

 Sprat from the young of the Herring and Pilchard, even by 

 the sense of feeling: but other marks are that the scales are 

 more easily removed, the colour less bright, and with less 

 reflections of tints when taken from the water. The dorsal 

 fill also is nearer the tail, with eighteen rays, of which the 

 first is short, and the two last united; the pectoral pointed, 

 with eighteen rays; anal narrow; ventrals with eight rays, and 

 not having a separate wing; tail forked, with eighteen rays. 

 Colour light blue on the back, all besides silvery, except that 

 sometimes on the sides it is yellowish; the fins tinted with 

 yellow. The number of vertebrae forty-eight or forty-nine, 

 which is less than is counted in the Pilchard or Herring. 

 Cuvier says that the yellow on the sides occurs only in the 

 season of spawning. 



It is to be observed that the relative position of the dorsal 

 fin of this fish is not always as pointed out by author? Dr. 



