124 CLri'KID.F. 



of the net when it is required to be raised. In this way an 

 enormous quantity of Sprats, with the fry of many other 

 species, are taken, which are principally sold by measure to 

 manure land near the coast. 



From four to five hundred boats are thus employed during 

 the winter. Many thousand tons in some seasons are taken 

 and sold at sixpence and eight-pence the bushel, depending 

 on the supply and demand, to farmers, who distribute about 

 forty bushels of Sprats over an acre of land, and sometimes 

 manure twenty acres at the cost of twenty shillings an acre. 

 In the winter of 1829-30, Sprats were particularly abundant: 

 barge-loads, containing from one thousand to fifteen hun- 

 dred bushels, bought at sixpence a bushel, were sent up the 

 Medway as far as Maidstone to manure the hop-grounds. 

 The coasts of Kent, Essex, and Suffolk are the most produc- 

 tive. So great is the supply thence obtained, that notwith- 

 standing the immense quantity consumed by the mi]] ion 

 and a half inhabitants of London and its neighbourhood, 

 there is yet occasionally a surplus to be disposed of at so 

 low a price as to induce the farmers even so near the metro- 

 polis as Dartford to use them for manure. 



A full-sized Sprat measures six inches in length, and 

 rather more than one inch and one-eighth in depth. The 

 length of the head compared to that of the body alone 

 is as one to four ; compared to the whole length of the fish, 

 as one to six : the depth of the body is to the whole length 

 as one to five. The dorsal fin commences exactly half-way 

 between the point of the lower jaw and the end of the caudal 

 rays : the ventral fins arise in a vertical line under the first 

 dorsal fin-ray, and have no axillary scales ; the ventral fins 

 in the Pilchard and Herrings begin under the middle of the 

 dorsal fin, and both have axillary scales, these are t'wo other 

 external distinctions : the under jaw is the longest ; the dia- 



