GREA T BRITAIN. 299 



being rather longer at its base than it is high anteriorly. 

 Ventrals inserted on a vertical line below the anterior 

 dorsal rays, the fin reaches about half-way to the vent. 

 Pectoral shorter than the head. Caudal forked. Scales. 

 Deciduous, smooth ; the keeled row along the ventral 

 surface well developed, and the scutes being a portion of 

 the scale, causing that edge to resemble a saw, 21 to 23 

 being before the base of the ventral fin and 1 1 or 12 behind 

 it. Intestines. Seven rather long caecal appendages. 

 Colours. Bluish along the back, becoming silvery on the 

 >ides and beneath ; in the young a yellow or bronze band 

 divides the blue of the back from the silvery abdomen. 



Habits. Gregarious, often in enormous shoals, while it is 

 very common to find young and old together, although the 

 irger examples do not generally come off our coast until 

 autumn and winter months. They ascend rivers as 

 iigh as the tide flows. Britt, which consist of young 

 icrrings or young sprats, ascend rivers along the Devon- 

 shire coast, and are found as high in the Exe as Exeter, 

 unless a flood occurs, when they are unable to face the 

 fresh water. 



Migrations. Although during the very cold months 

 herrings, pilchards, &c., more or less retire to the deep, 

 sprats on the contrary come towards the shore, but even 

 when present the shoals are capricious in their movements 

 as well as in their extent. Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and 

 Kent are noted for the large shoals which occasionally 

 show themselves, while they disappear more completely 

 from the western side of the kingdom during their season 

 of absence than they do from the eastern. Even the 

 season of appearance varies considerably in different years 

 at the same place. During the summer and autumn 

 .months young or small inshore sprats are rarely absent 



