Various Material composing Whitebait. 89 



Buckland, who usually seized the practical side of a thing, 

 overhauled direct the nets and baskets of the whitebaiters. His 

 list runs 1, herrings ; 2, sprats ; 3, gobies ; 4, weevers ; 5, sand- 

 eels ; 6, smelts ; 7, pipe-fish ; 8, sticklebacks ; 9, buntings or 

 brown shrimps; 10, red shrimps; 11, gorebills or garpike.* 

 This is correct as far as it goes, but requires expansion, for 

 to our knowledge the following forms also occur : 12, sand 

 smelts ; 13, shad ; 14, eels ; 15, eel-pouts ; 16, White Goby 

 (Aphid)-, 17, plaice; 18, dabs; 19, flounders; 20, soles; 

 21, bass ; 22, mullet ; 23, lump fish ; 24, Sea-horse (Hippo- 

 campus) ; 25, lamprey ; 26, crabs (= shore and pea-crabs) ; 

 27, Isopods (Idotea) ; 28, Opossum shrimps (Mysidce) ; 29, 

 octopus ; 30, star-fish (five-fingers) ; 31, jelly fish (the 

 fishermen's "flat'' and "round-gall," see Whitebaiting, 

 sect. VI.) ; even another might be added in an occasional dash 

 of seaweed. 



Such is the heterogeneous assemblage despatched to 

 Billingsgate vouched for from our oft-repeated scrutiny of 

 net, box and basket, added to which frequent gustatory 

 experience of what is served up in the dainty dishes at hotels 

 and restaurants. Of course, the relative numbers of each sort 

 are most unequal and uncertain. Some are present quite by 

 accident, others in profusion or the opposite, according to 

 season, weather, and tides where fished for, and the net in use. 



In fact, whitebaiting requires experience, discretion, and 

 careful picking to be successful in choice results. But if an 

 odd creature by hazard now and again gets into or is sent off 

 in a box, as several animals mentioned exemplify, it is to be 

 impressed on the reader that the men often are placed under 

 most disadvantageous circumstances. To work in partial 

 darkness, or in rainy, roughish weather, and to get the catch 

 despatched in hot haste, in time for market train for it must 

 go fresh from the sea quickly or spoil the culling necessary 

 has to be bustled through somehow. If sorting and picking 

 could be performed leisurely and systematically, then there 



* Append. Commissioners Rep. Lond. 1879. 



