of Whitebait and Shad. 261 



British Fishes. It maybe "Le Pretre on Spret deCalais,le Franc- 

 Blaquet ou Franche Blanche," four names given by Duhamel 

 to one small species of Chipea, though his figure is not like 

 our fish ; yet as the Whitebait frequents the Thames every 

 summer, it is not unlikely that it should be taken at Calais. 



Sir Everard Home, in his recently published additional vo- 

 lumes on Comparative Anatomy (vol. v. c. 4. sect. 1. page 232, 

 and vol. vi. plate 28) has inferred, from certain resemblances 

 in the ova and serrated abdominal edges of four fishes of the 

 genus Clupea, that the Whitebait is a young Shad, and the 

 Sprat a young Herring. Dr. Fleming in his History of British 

 Animals, published in 1828, does not allow the Sprat a place 

 among his fishes; and at page 183, after giving the specific 

 characters of the Pilchard {Chipea Pilcardus), the following 

 sentences occur: " The fry of the Herring and Pilchard are 

 confounded together under the epithet Sprat. The position of 

 the dorsal fin, in reference to gravity, furnishes, however, an 

 obvious mark of distinction." The differences already detailed 

 as existing in the anatomy and habits of Whitebait and Shads 

 render any further observations on that subject unnecessary, 

 while between the Sprat and Herring the distinctions are still 

 more decided. On comparing a Sprat with a j'oung Herring 

 of the same length, at which age they are called by the fisher- 

 men Yawlings, the Sprat will be found to be considerably 

 deeper, and the scales much larger; in this latter circumstance 

 the Sprat resembles the Pilchard, but the Pilchard on the other 

 hand is not so deep a fish as the Herring. The Sprat and 

 Herring differ also in the number of rays in three of their fins 

 out of the four they possess^ and also in the tail, as the follow- 

 ing numbers exhibit. 



D. P. V. A. C. 



Sprat 17 15 7 18 19 



Herring... 17 14 9 14 20 



There is also one other most material difference, the vertebra: 

 in the Sprat are 48 in number, in the Herring there are 56, as 

 I have ascertained upon many examples of both species. 



The number of vertebra; in the Whitebait and Herring 

 being the same might suggest the idea that the Whitebait were 

 young Herrings, but the ceconomy of the sj)ecies prevents this 

 conclusion. The Whitebait are unknown on the shores of our 

 various Northern islands, where the Herrings in myriads de- 

 posit their spawn ; and on tlie other hand, the Thames j)ro- 

 duces Wliitebait in abundance during the summer, remaining 

 with us till August, when the Herrings are heavy with roe 

 which they do not deposit till October. 



XXXVUI. On 



