HEKBING. 115 



female Herring ; he has also known them to be taken by the 

 fishermen on their lines, the hooks of which were baited with 

 limpets ; and they have been repeatedly caught by anglers 

 with an artificial fly. The young abound in the shallow 

 water all round our shores during the summer months. I 

 have seen them taken off Brighton in the small-meshed nets 

 which are there used to draw for Atherine ; and they are 

 caught by boys while angling from piers and rocks at various 

 places along the southern coast. They are very abundant on 

 the Yorkshire coast, where they are called Herring-sile ; 

 and they swarm among the Orkney and Shetland Islands 

 during the whole of the summer. They remain at the 

 mouth of the Thames during their first autumn and winter : 

 many are caught on the coasts of Essex and Kent in the 

 nets used for taking sprats. From repeated examinations, I 

 am induced to believe these young fish do not mature any 

 roe during their first year. 



The length of the head compared to the length of the 

 body alone, without the head or caudal rays, is as one to four; 

 the depth of the body compared to the whole length of the 

 fish, as one to five : the commencement of the dorsal fin 

 half-way between the point of the upper jaw and the end of 

 the fleshy portion of the tail ; the longest ray nearly as long 

 as the base of the fin : the pectoral fin rather large compared 

 to the size of the other fins. The ventral fin arises consider- 

 ably behind the line of the commencement of the dorsal fin : 

 this fin is small, with elongated axillary scales ; its origin 

 half-way between the point of the lower jaw and the end of 

 the short central caudal rays. The anal fin begins half-way 

 between the origin of the ventral and the end of the fleshy 

 portion of the tail, and extends over half the distance be- 

 tween its origin and the end of the fleshy portion, thus 

 occupying the third quarter division of the distance between 



