HERRING. 



748 



does in the Thames, I have very Tittle doubt might 

 be caught in some of the neighbouring rivers on our 

 south and east coasts." This is certainly highly 

 probable ; and the same remark, doubtless, applies to 

 other fishes which are usually said to be very local. 

 We are, in general, very ignorant of the habits of 

 fishes ; and modes of fishing are the most local of all 

 arts ; so that in all cases in which there is any great 

 similarity between one part of the water and another, 

 it is always worth while to try, if what is got in the 

 one could not be got in the other also, by using the 

 same means. 



The common whitebait net is small, only about 

 three feet each way in the opening. It is put over 

 the side of the boat, moved in a depth of from three 

 to five fathoms, and let down to the depth of only 

 about four feet. The fish come with the flood, but 

 never ascend beyond the brackish water. This alone 

 might have shown that they were not shads, as 

 these often go many miles up the fresh. The heat 

 produced by the mixing of the fresh and salt water 

 is the stimulating cause which brings them, and also 

 the reason why they move up and down with the 

 tide. On this account they are not very likely to be 

 found in any but tidal rivers, in which there is a con- 

 siderable range of the tidal play. 



Farther down the estuary of the Thames, white- 

 bait are sometimes caught of larger size than on the 

 grounds usually fished, and they are also caught nearer 

 the bottom, and in deeper water ; but while whitebait 

 is the chief fish caught on the stations farther up, it 

 arrives only as a straggler in those more seaward 

 places ; and, as is known to be the case with the pil- 

 chard, and supposed to be the case with the herring, 

 it keeps more to the bottom as it gets farther out to 

 sea. Whether it might not be followed into these 

 localities, and taken by deeper nets than those now 

 used ; or rather, whether it might not be met as it 

 returns from them, is a point worthy of investigation 

 We know, that in the case of salmon, the more sea- 

 ward they are taken they are the better ; but this 

 may not hold in the case of white-bait, or, indeed, in 

 that of any of the herring family. Herrings, them- 

 selves, are better when they are taken in the quiet 

 Days, with fat bottoms, and the same may hold true 

 of "all the family. For salmon are fishes of colder 

 latitudes, and hence they do not select the top of the 

 brackish water, where the greatest heat is, for their 

 spawning-places, but pass into the fresh of the rivers 

 and even, in some instances, hundreds of miles inland 

 although, as an article of food, their quality deterio- 

 rates from the moment that they quit the fully satu- 

 rated water of the sea, or, at all events, the open sea 

 water of the places to which they resort. 



Whitebait, as is the case with the whole herrin 

 family, are very tender in their vital system ; and 

 true to the general character of all animals which are 

 thus tender, their flavour very speedily falls off, am 

 they soon become putrid and unwholesome. The;; 

 are so very delicate that they cannot even be carriec 

 to any great distance in boats which are providec 

 with wells. They can therefore be had in perfection 

 only in the immediate vicinity of the places in whicl 

 they are caught, and the sooner they are dressec 

 after being taken out of the water the better. Thi 

 is an additional reason for ascertaining whether thej 

 may not be found in other rivers besides the Thame 

 and the Hamble. In order to contribute our humbl 



mite to the ascertaining of this, we shall add a short 

 lescription of the appearance of these very interest- 

 ng little fishes ; and it would be worse than affectation 

 o attempt doing this in any other language than that 

 rf Mr. Yarrell. 



" The length of the head," says Mr. Yarrell, " corn- 

 ered with that of the body alone, is as two to five ; 

 he depth of the body, compared with the whole 

 ength of the fish, as one to five ; the dorsal-fin com- 

 mences half-way between the point of the closed jaws 

 and the ends of the short middle caudal rays ; the 

 the longer ray of the dorsal-fin is as long as the base 

 of the fin ; the ventral-fin arises behind the commence- 

 ment of the dorsal, and halt-way between the point 

 of the closed jaws and the end of the largest caudal 

 rays; the tail long, and deeply forked. The fin- 

 rays in number are 



" Dorsal, seventeen ; pectoral, fifteen ; ventral, 

 nine ; anal, fifteen ; and caudal, twenty. The verte- 

 brae of the spinal column are fifty-six. 



" The head is elongated ; the dorsal line less con- 

 vex than that of the abdomen ; the scales deciduous ; 

 :he abdominal line strongly serrated from the pectoral 

 5n to the anal aperture. 



" The lower-jaw the largest, and smooth ; the 

 upper slightly crenated ; the tongue with an elevated 

 central ridge without any teeth ; the eye large ; the 

 irides silvery ; the upper part of the back pale green- 

 ish ash ; all the lower parts, the cheeks, gill-covers, 

 sides, and belly, silvery-white ; dorsal and caudal 

 fins coloured tike the back ; pectoral, ventral, and 

 anal fins, white. The only food I could find in the 

 stomach were the ratnains of minute Crustacea." 



This description, which is equally accurate and 

 circumstantial, will enable any one who takes an 

 interest in the seasonal fish of any of our rich tidal 

 rivers to know this much-famed species, and if only 

 one is found in a river, that will be sufficient to 

 justify a fair trial with the whitebait net properly 

 constructed and worked ; for these fishes always 

 come in shoals to their breeding-places, and very 

 rarely straggle. Fro.n what Mr. Yarrell says of the 

 food of this, the smallest and most delicate of the 

 herring family, it is highly probable that the whole 

 family feed upon those small Crustacea and other 

 little creatures which float in countless myriads in the 

 sea, and are very much at the mercy of the currents, 

 so that, according as those currents shift in their 

 setting against each other the fishes which feed on 

 the living load of the water may also require to shift. 

 This may, in part at least, explain why the herrings 

 are so apparently capricious on our eastern shores. 

 Those shores have a current of tide from the north 

 parallel to the general line of the coast, while, on the 

 opposite coast of the continent, the tidal movement 

 is in the reverse direction, or to the north, as far at 

 least as the entrance of the Baltic. There is thus a 

 general eddy and deposit of whatever is suspended in 

 the middle of our eastern sea ; and in the different 

 estuaries and embayments along our east coast there 

 are of course smaller eddies, which in like manner 

 ' make their deposits, though to an inferior amount. 

 The variable winds, and the action of the land-floods 

 in the upper estuaries, must have considerable effect 

 upon the eddy water which collects those little crea- 

 tures that are taken up from their birth-place on the 

 shores ; and the removal of the food by this means, 

 en masse, may co-operate with the consumption of 



