DEIFT-NET FISHING. 127 



the spirit in which they are preserved ; but we think 

 that if reputed whitebait differ in any respect whatever 

 from true herrings, it may be in having a more silvery 

 coat, or, strictly speaking, in having less colour on the 

 back and a more bleached appearance. If this be so, 

 the fact of such fish having frequented comparatively 

 brackish water, and therefore obtained food probably 

 different from what they would have met with in the sea, 

 may go far to explain the difference in appearance ; but 

 degrees of colour alone, we need hardly say, are utterly 

 worthless for the purpose of distinguishing species. No 

 reputed whitebait containing spawn has been met with ; 

 there is very strong reason, therefore, for believing 

 them all to be immature fish ; and as they have not a 

 single specific character to distinguish them from her- 

 rings, it appears to us to require no very great stretch 

 of imagination to conclude that when they leave the 

 brackish water and grow large enough to breed, they 

 do so under the guise of the ordinary herring. If the 

 whitebait be really a distinct species, we have yet to 

 discover by what tangible and constant character it can 

 be distinguished ; and if there be no character of any 

 recognized specific value which is not found in both the 

 herring and the reputed whitebait, and the immaturity 

 of the latter be invariably indicated by the undeveloped 

 condition of the reproductive organs, the grounds for 

 separating them are not very obvious. 



The drift-fishery for mackerel is principally on the 

 coasts of England and Ireland. These fish appear at 

 first in deep water south and south-west of the British 

 Islands, and are caught sometimes as early as January 

 60 miles west of the Land's End. The Cornish fishery, 

 however, does not generally begin till towards the end 

 of February, and it extends into June. May, June, and 



