GREA T BRITAIN. 273 



appreciable difference.* Three to four weeks has been 

 suggested as the probable time at which hatching normally 

 occurs after extrusion ; while if these eggs are heaped 

 together they become mouldy, and no one appears to have 

 succeeded in rearing these fish from artificially fecundated 

 eggs. Meyer found that in a few days after being hatched 

 they commenced preying upon microscopic forms existing 

 in the water ; after a month on small Crustacea, and at the 

 end of the third month they were a little over \\ inches in 

 length. Beyond five months he could not keep them alive. 

 The young, known as whitebait, swarm along our shores in 

 certain localities, sometimes to a great extent mixed up 

 with sprats, at other times in independent assemblages. 



Herring fisheries. It would appear from the Com- 

 missioners' report that young herrings along the east coast 

 of Scotland were first permitted to be captured in small- 

 meshed, sprat, or garvie nets in 1868, the true garvie 

 being the sprat, Clupea sprattus, and the young herring or 

 wjiitebait belonging to the C. harengus. Some of the 

 witnesses averred that when garvies are scarce, many young 

 herrings are sent away with them, while it is impossible to 

 take garvies without taking the young herring. One wit- 

 ness (p. 14) asserted having purchased thirty barrels of 

 garvies in one day, and found they were all young her- 

 rings. My only personal experience consists of some 

 garvies from the north-east coast, most of which were 

 undoubtedly young herrings. They were about 3 inches 

 each in length, requiring 288 to weigh a pound, or 645,120 



* In the Baltic the German Commissioners ascertained that with 

 the water at 53 the eggs hatched in a week, whereas at 38 they took 

 six weeks, while raising the temperature above 53 did not quicken 

 the hatching process. 



VOL. I. E. I. T 



