3I g THE SPRAT. 



Few fish have so many foes as the Herring, its marvellously gregarious habits ren- 

 dering it an easy prey to finned and feathered foes ; and its shoals are so perseveringly 

 preyed upon by the birds of the air and the fishes of the sea, that even the havoc 

 annually made by man falls probably short of that caused by the ceaseless attacks of 

 the myriad enemies that surround them. 



Several of the cetaceans are in the habit of following the Herrings to the shore, and 

 gorging themselves during the whole of their stay. Various members of the shark 

 tribe rove ceaselessly among the shoals, and by their peculiar habit of snapping the fish 

 asunder before swallowing it, cause a large quantity of oil to escape, and to produce a 

 peculiar effect upon the surface. The chimaera and many other of the large-sized fish 

 take the opportunity of enjoying a boundless feast, and prowl around the shoals like 

 roaming banditti. The sea-birds above are quite as voracious as the fish below, and as 

 actively engaged in the pursuit of their prey; so that when man, birds and fishes 

 have had their share, it seems quite wonderful that the whole Herring race is not 

 exterminated. 



In the Norwegian fisheries, the boatmen do not like to shoot their nets unless they 

 are sure that a shoal of Herrings is passing. During the daytime, therefore, they 

 watch for their prey with an instrument called a water-glass, which is nothing more 

 than a trumpet-shaped tube of wood, with a simple plate of glass let into the broad end. 

 This is pushed under water,, and when the eye of the observer is applied to the 

 upper extremity, enables him to see to a considerable depth, the vision not being dis- 

 turbed by the shifting lines of the surface. At night the men lower a line, to which a 

 weight is attached, and as soon as they feel the line jarred by the passing fish, they 

 shoot their nets, in the certainty of effecting a capture. 



The color of the Herring is blue above with greenish reflections, and the rest of the 

 body is silvery white. After the fish has been dead for some hours, the cheeks and 

 gill-covers become red, as if from injected blood. 



ANOTHER species of this fish, called LEACH'S HERRING (Clupea Leachii), is taken off 

 our coasts during the winter months ; the roe being well developed at the end of January, 

 and the spawn deposited in February. It is a small species, between seven and eight 

 inches in length. 



THE common SPRAT is another very useful fish, though not so extensively valued as 

 the herring. 



Like that fish, it swims in vast shoals during the spawning season, which immediately 

 succeeds that of the herring, so that from July to February and March the public can 

 command a continual supply of fresh sea-fish, which can be purchased at so cheap a 

 rate as to be within the reach of all classes, and are, nevertheless, of such excellent 

 flavor, that, if they were as scarce as they are plentiful, they would be held in high esti- 

 mation at the tables of the wealthy. To the taste of many persons, however, the Sprat 

 is too rich and too strongly flavored to be in much request. 



This fish is captured in nets of various kinds, the nature of the net mostly depending 

 on that of the locality ; and as it swims in shoals quite equal in numbers to those of the 

 herring, it is taken in countless multitudes when the boats happen to be fortunate in 

 their selection of a fishing-ground. Now and then the " take " is so enormous that 

 even the London markets, which usually absorb every eatable article which can be 

 brought for sale, and often anticipate the future crops or supplies, are at times so over- 

 stocked with Sprats that the fishermen can find no ordinary sale for their perishable 

 goods, and are perforce obliged to dispose of them to the farmers, who spread them over 

 their lands for manure, most unfragrant but exceedingly fertilizing. 



At one time the Sprat was thought to be the young of the herring, pilchard, or shad, 

 a mistake occurring in all probability from the vague manner in which the word Sprat 

 is employed in many seaside villages, any little whitish fish being called by that name. 

 It can, however, be distinguished even in the dark from the young of either of these 

 fishes, by means of the sharply notched edge of the abdomen. In color it is very like 

 the herring. 





