Sprat Sex : Irregular Numbers. 81 



and plumpness. These are caught by large meshed drift-nets, 

 and not stow-nets, so doubtless the lesser sized fish escape 

 entanglement. 



According to the records of the Scotch Fishery Officers, 

 among herrings males and females are almost identical in 

 numbers, viz., in the proportion of 100 of the former to 99 of 

 the latter. In the case of the sprat in our English waters the 

 females out-number the males at least, of some 200 adult 

 specimens examined 75 were males and 125 females. Whether 

 this inequality in sex would hold good were a longer series in- 

 spected, remains to be seen. Taking the data for what it is 

 worth, it seems to lend countenance to Fulton's suggestion* of 

 a preponderance of females in those fish having floating (pelagic) 

 eggs, e.g., sprat, in contradistinction to its close ally the herring, 

 whose eggs are sunken (demersal) or fixed to various sub- 

 stances. 



Sprats with us are very irregular in their abundance and 

 scarcity, barely two seasons following resembling each other. 

 This periodicity of plenty and the reverse appears always to have 

 been the case. Certain red-letter years have occurred with a 

 perfect glut of them all round the coast ; or again, at one part 

 of our district they would be more plentiful than at another. 

 Some spratters of long standing maintain that they formerly 

 were more numerous, others are of a contrary opinion. 



In Buckland and Walpole's Commission, 1878, a witness at 

 Southend stated that taking five-yearly averages there had 

 been no difference in the sprat fishing for 40 years. At Graves- 

 end they said sprats had fallen off 75 per cent. ; at Leigh they 

 were decreasing. Rochester and Queenborough men had the 

 same tale, though the latter admitted it was rather that they now 

 fished for them off the North Foreland and Prince's Channel ; 

 one boat in 1877 having caught 50 worth of sprats in a week 

 west of the Tongue Light. Meantime superfine sprats were got 

 at Dover, and four years previously very plentif ul at Ramsgate 



* 10th Ann. Rep. F.B.S. for 1891. 



