CLUPEA PONTICA. 263 



opportunities for studying 1 the fish, it furnishes a curious note on the views of 

 older writers that many of the best observers regarded it as a distinct species. 

 Dr. Giinther, however, discovered that the Whitebait is the young- of the 

 common Herring, mixed it may be with some other young fishes. Indeed, 

 Eels, Pipe-fish, Sticklebacks, Gobies, and many other types which have 

 nothing in common with the Whitebait, are captured with it ; and Mr. Day 

 found that while Whitebait consisted entirely of Herrings in the autumn, 

 there were about seven per cent, of Sprats mixed with them in the summer ; 

 but even then the Sprat is easily recognised, for it has no teeth in the 

 vomerine bone of the palate, which are present in the Herring, only seven or 

 eight cseeal appendages to the intestine, instead of about twenty in the 

 Herring, while the abdomen has a sharper keel in the Sprat, and the form 

 of the body is different. 



Usually, Whitebait are about two inches long, but they necessarily grow 

 much larger, though they cease to be sold as Whitebait when the length 

 exceeds three or four inches. 



The spawn of the Herring appears to be shed at sea in March, and hatched 

 in from one to six weeks, according to temperature. Then the young frequent 

 the estuary of the Thames, Southampton Water, mouths of rivers on the 

 opposite coast of France, and other localities, such as the Frith of Forth. 



Whitebait are taken from a boat moored in the river with the net kept at 

 the surface ; so that as the fish come up with the tide they enter it, when the 

 small end is from time to time drawn into the boat, and the fish shaken out. 

 They do not reach Woolwich till the tide has been running three or four hours, 

 and the wqter has become a little brackish, but lower down, where the water 

 becomes salter, they may always be taken during the season. The Whitebait feed 

 on minute Crustacea. 



Clupea pontica (EICHWALD). 

 D. 23/1314, P. 16, V. 1/8 A. 13/1718, C. 56/19/54. 



The Black Sea Herring ascends the Dniester, Bug, and Dnieper in shoals 

 every spring. In the Dnieper it is found as far up as Kiev, but the only 

 tributary in which it is recorded by Kessler is the Psiol. It is taken in 

 bag nets in enormous quantities. It is a thin fish, and does not salt well ; but 

 is dried and smoked as food for the agricultural population of the surrounding 

 steppes. Its usual weight is from a quarter to half a pound. 



The body is as high as the head is long, and measures one- quarter of the 

 length of the fish without the caudal fin. The cleft of the mouth extends to 

 the orbit. The lower jaw is rather prominent. Teeth of small size are found 



