172 MARINE AND FRESHWATER FISHES 



(Mytilus), which, minced very fine, was devoured with avidity 

 by the little Whitebait, and thenceforward constituted their 

 normal nutriment A like food-material was also successfully 

 utilised by the writer for rearing Lobsters from the egg 

 through their various larval metamorphoses to the adult form, 

 and might be advantageously adopted for the cultivation of 

 a variety of young marine fish and other organisms hitherto 

 found difficult to rear. Should there be sufficient space at 

 disposal at the Exhibition Aquarium the writer has proposed 

 to devote a couple of small tanks to a repetition of the ex- 

 perimental cultivation of Whitebait and Lobsters just 

 described.* While it was thus proved to demonstration that 

 the genuine Whitebait represented by the Clupea alba 

 of Yarrell, is no more nor less than young Herring, it has 

 to be admitted that the delicacy as supplied to us at the 

 Metropolitan restaurants, and even at classic Greenwich, 

 may and does not unfrequently include a very menagerie of 

 piscine fry; young Gobies, Flat-fish, Weevers, Sand-eels, 

 Shrimps, and even Sticklebacks, being, indeed, often recog- 

 nisable among the heap of slain that should consist entirely 

 of Clupeidse. The Sprat (Clupea sprattus), No. 177, 

 distinguished from the Herring by its small size and 

 strongly serrated ventral edge, the Pilchard (C. pilchardus), 

 No. 1 80, and the two fish known as the Allis-Shad (C. alosa), 

 No. 178, and the Twait-Shad (C.fintd), No. 179, conclude 

 the list of British Herrings. The Shads, which resemble the 

 ordinary Herring in shape, but are of much larger size, 

 sometimes attaining to a length of three or four feet, are re- 

 markable for their habit of entering the mouths of rivers and 



* For a fuller account of these experiments the reader is referred to 

 the writer's paper on " The Construction, Management, and Utility of 

 Aquaria," read before the Society of Arts on March ist, 1876, and 

 published in the succeeding number of the Society's Journal. 



