Valueless Fishes Mixed with Wliitebait. 91 



(B.) Vertebrates. Fish. 



(a) No set Fisheries in District. Taking the Stickleback 

 first : this, as everyone will allow, is not much of an eatable 

 commodity. Only seldom have we observed a specimen. The 

 fishermen feel their prickles before sight warns. During the 

 season many Lump-fish get caught, but, unless exceptionally 

 small, do not find their way into the boxes ; though we have 

 once caught sight of a very small one. A solitary example of 

 a diminutive Hippocampus was taken out alive, and kept by 

 A. Bundock for some days in a dish of seawater as a curiosity, 

 afterwards being given to us. The Gobies (whitethroats or 

 polywigs of Leighmen) are in marked contrast, for one or other 

 sort may be numerous or again few present. At special times 

 they are a marked feature in the boxes, and, though strenuously 

 attempted to be picked out, circumstances often prevent, when 

 they are freely sent to market. Tndeed, it can be asserted that 

 a fat One or Two-spotted goby, especially if in spawn, is capital 

 eating, and preferable to certain dry stages of the young 

 herring (yawlings). Here, therefore, in the gobies we have 

 an instance of plentiful little fishes which ordinarily are re- 

 jected as food, when dressed up as whitebait becoming useful 

 and indeed expensive diet. Moreover, we may incidentally 

 remark that we have reason for suspecting that the transparent 

 white goby (Aphia pellucida), so abundant in the river Thames, 

 was the original of the Thames whitebait of the beginning of 

 the 17th century. 



That diminutive, even fairly large, Wee vers get caught among 

 the " bait " is certain, for the men dread their sting, so whenever 

 seen they get short shift. Extremely few indeed must ever reach 

 the market. Only once or twice at most have we detected 

 examples of the Lesser Weever (Trachinus vipera) in a very 

 large number of boxes of whitebait overhauled by us prior to 

 their transit. Buckland's statement that " The * Rooshians ' that 

 come into the river about May are the young of the weever 

 fish ; they have little colouring and are very jelly-like " is 



