88 Sprats Enemies Wliitebait. 



the fishermen and the manager. Thus the inexorable law of 

 supply and demand sets at nought theoretical utility. (See 

 Sect. XI., Fish Product Manufacture.) 



Among the sprats' greatest foes, besides man, are the same 

 ravenous fish families, the sea birds and the porpoises, 

 mentioned as devastators of herrings. In batches of sprats, 

 never in herrings, generally one will be found with an " eye- 

 sucker," viz., a double-tailed worm-like parasite, streaming 

 away from the orbit. This is phosphorescent, hence such 

 sprats are known vernacularly as "lantern sprats." The 

 parasite in question (Lerneonema) does not seem much to affect 

 the health of the fish, which are usually in as plump a condition 

 as their companions. 



WHITEBAIT. 



Appendix to Herring and Sprats. By the popular term 

 whitebait is to be understood, not one particular kind of fish, 

 but a mixed series of small fish, &c., which are sent collectively 

 to the market under this commonly known appellation. It is 

 true that naturalists from the beginning of last century to 

 about the eighties, were not of one mind as to their identity. 

 Pennant declared them young bleak, Donovan and Fleming 

 young shad, Yarrell a separate species of supposed adult fish, 

 his Clupea alba* ; Gunther more judiciously recognized in them 

 the young of herring, substantiated by Day with addition of 

 sprats, which last view has received ample confirmation from 

 extensive examinations of Thames and Forth whitebait by 

 Ewart and Matthews.f Nearly all these authorities confined 

 themselves to ascertaining what was the bright and silvery fish 

 that predominated in the so-called whitebait, ignoring the other 

 material. 



* A view supported by Cuvier and Couch; Valenciennes went further in con- 

 stituting them a new genus, his Rogenia. 



t 4th Ann. Rep. S.F.B. for 1805, and other articles in 2nd Ann. Rep. for 1893. 



