742 



HERRING. 



with due care, they make no unsavoury meai. It is 

 necessary, however, that they should be recent ; for 

 there are few fishes that are sooner injured by keeping 

 than sprats. 



The sprat is a fish of the east coast of Britain 

 rather than the west, and its favourite places are the 

 estuaries of the rivers farther upward than the herring 

 usually comes. Thus, in the north, the herring, 

 though plentiful on the coast of Caithness, rarely 

 comes far into the Moray Firth ; while the best sprat 

 fishing is in the arm of that Frith which extends 

 beyond Inverness to Beauly. In the Frith of Forth 

 the herring, even when most frequent in thtt localit}^ 

 seldom goes above Kinghorn, or even as far, while the 

 sprat ascends to the narrows about Inch Garvie ; 

 and on this account the vulgar name in that part of 

 Scotland is " Garvie herring," or simply " Garvie." 

 In the Thames, again, the sprat comes about the east 

 of Kent, and partially round the North Foreland. 

 On the east and north-east of Ireland, the sprat also 

 makes its appearance ; but it does not resort to any 

 part of the coast which is exposed to the full roll of 

 the Atlantic. 



In the south of England the sprat fishing begins in 

 November ; but it is earlier in the north ; and the fish 

 is less esteemed there, because fish are more abundant 

 and buyers fewer there than in the south. Sprats are 

 caught with small-meshed drift nets, or with stow- 

 boats. In this case two boats have a large purse-net 

 between them kept open to the run of the water by 

 two beams, one above the other, and six farther apart ; 

 the depth of the whole from the surface being a matter 

 depending on local circumstances. The current 

 carries the sprats into this great net ; and when the 

 proper time comes, the mouth of the net is closed by 

 raising the lower beam. " All is fish that comes into 

 a net" of this kind, sprats, dory, anything. The 

 quantity taken is often immense, and as counting is 

 out of the question, they are sold by measure, some- 

 times at sixpence a bushel for manure. A full-grown 

 sprat is about six inches long, and rather more than 

 an inch in depth. They are eaten fresh, preserved 

 in various ways, and sometimes manufactured into 

 counterfeit anchovies. 



WHITEBAIT (C. alba). Long as this fish has been 

 celebrated by the more recherche ichthyophagi, for its 

 delicate flavour, and the impossibility of getting it in 

 perfection anywhere but at the few places where it 

 can be had recently caught, it was not until within these 

 few years, when Mr. Yarrell investigated its natural his- 

 tory, that the truth was known concerning- it. This may 

 seem singular ; for there is scarcely a constellation of 

 great men, right honourable, right worshipful, right 

 learned, or, we believe we may add, right reverend, 

 in the British metropolis, which would not from time 

 immemorial have considered it a ban-yan year in the 

 calendar, if they had not got their annual feast of 

 whitebait at Greenwich, or in the vicinity. It may 

 be true that, as the poet sings, 



" dainty bits 



Make rich the ribs, but banker ottt the wits 3" 



but still, when we consider that the most learned 

 societies have been for so long a period doing the 

 greatest justice to this little fish in a gastronoraical 

 point of view, it seems passing strange that none of 

 them should have ever thought of being grateful to 

 the little lord of the feast, and showing their gratitude 

 by giving it a local habitation &wl i name upon the 



scroll as a distinct species and perfect fish, instead of 

 continuing to regard it as the young of the shad ; for 

 if they had used their eyes with half the zeal on the 

 living fish that they no doubt displayed in their 

 palates to the dead one, they would have seen that, 

 if the offspring of the shad, this fish could not be legi- 

 timate. It is, perhaps, as well, however, that they let 

 this matter alone ; for we doubt very much whether 

 any one individual, or, with great deference, any one 

 society, however learned, could have done half the 

 justice to the subject which has been done by Mr. 

 Yarrell ; and we, on our part, should be doing injus- 

 tice both to him and to our readers if we did not 

 quote a portion of his description, instead of substi- 

 tuting any thing of our own. 



" About the end of March, or early in April," says 

 Mr. Yarrell, " whitebait begin to make their appear- 

 ance in the Thames, and are then small, apparently 

 but just changed from the albuminous state of very 

 young fry. During the fine weather of June, July, 

 and August, immense quantities are consumed by 

 visiters to the different taverns at Greenwich and 

 Blackwall. Pennant says, ' they are esteemed very 

 delicious when fried with fine flour, and occasion 

 during the season a vast resort of the lower order 

 of epicures to the taverns contiguous to the places 

 where they are taken.' What might have been the 

 particular grade of persons who were in the habit of 

 visiting Greenwich to eat white bait in the days when 

 Pennant wrote, I am unable to state ; but at present 

 the fashion of enjoying the excellent course 01 fish, as 

 served up either at Greenwich or Blackwall, is sanc- 

 tioned by the highest authorities, from t'he court at 

 St. James's Palace in the west, to the Lord Mayor 

 and his court in the east, including the cabinet 

 ministers and the philosophers of the Royal Society. 

 As might be expected, examples numerous and influ- 

 ential have corresponding weight ; and, accordingly, 

 there are few entertainments more popular or more 

 agreeable than a white-bait dinner. The fishery is 

 continued frequently as late as September ; and speci- 

 mens of young fish of the year, four and five inches 

 long, are then not uncommon, but mixed, even at 

 this late period of the season, with others of very 

 small size, as though the roe had continued to be 

 deposited throughout the summer ; yet the parent 

 fish are not caught, and are believed by the fishermen 

 not to come higher up than the estuary ; where, at 

 this season of the year, nets sufficiently small in the 

 mesh to stop them are not in use. The particular 

 mode of fishing for whitebait, by which a constant 

 supply during the season is obtained, was formerly 

 considered destructive to the fry of fishes generally, 

 and great pains were taken to prevent it by those to 

 whom the conservancy of the fishery of the Thames 

 was entrusted ; but since the history and habits of 

 this species have been better understood, and it has 

 been ascertained that no other fry of any value swim 

 with them, which I can aver, the men have been 

 allowed to continue this part of their occupation with 

 little or no disturbance, though still using an unlawful 

 net." Fame's British Fishes, vol. ii. pp. 127, 128. 



The only other British locality in which its histo- 

 rian mentions that this fish is to be found, is " the 

 Hamble, which runs into Southampton-water ;" but, 

 as he very justly believes, this is owing, " rather to 

 the want of a particular mode of fishing, by which so 

 small a fish can be taken so near the surface, than to 

 the absence of the fish itself; which, abounding as it 



