1 88 SALT-WATER FISHES 



considered a large specimen. Nor are their habits much more 

 alike than their appearance, since the atherine spawns in the 

 open sea, whereas the true smelt ascends rivers for the purpose, 

 like the salmon, and has been taken in the Thames above 

 Richmond. The only person who sometimes persists in con- 

 fusing the two is the fishmonger, and he is not wanting in 

 excellent reasons for so doing. The two fish occur together 

 on Breydon Water, near Yarmouth, and one or other is said 

 to predominate in different seasons. 



The lateral line, though commonly described as indistinct, 

 and actually so in the majority of examples, is very plainly 

 marked in a few individuals, and the writer has noticed this 

 peculiarity rather more often in those caught in the Teign 

 estuary than in those taken at Bournemouth and elsewhere 

 out of the influence of fresh water. That there should be 

 any connection between these circumstances does not appear 

 clear, and the observation is offered indeed with every reser- 

 vation, since no very extended series has been examined from 

 both districts for the purpose of comparison. Boyer's 

 atherine, by the way — which has been regarded, erroneously, 

 as the young of the common species — is a Mediterranean 

 form with a larger eye and fewer vertebrae. If it were, as 

 alleged, the young of the atherine, its occurrence in our seas 

 would have been more often recorded, for the atherine fry 

 absolutely swarm some years in our south-coast estuaries in 

 June and July, and the writer could often have caught scores 

 of them in the Teign with a single dip of a butterfly-net. 



The colour of the atherine is some variable shade of brown 

 or green, some being coloured like the launce and others like 

 the sand-eel (to be presently described), and there is an iri- 

 descent band along the sides which, seen sideways in the sun, 

 has a very beautiful violet sheen. This, however, quickly fades 

 after death, and few of our fishes, save, perhaps, the herring, 

 die more rapidly when removed from the sea. 



Atherines are fatally curious, and this leads to their being 



