FISH AS FATHERS, 



175 



addition merely of a little salt. No man of taste can 

 pretend to like the nasty sun-dried sort, in which the in- 

 dividual eggs are reduced to a kind of black pulp, and 

 pressed hard with the feet into doubtful barrels. 



In conclusion, let me add one word of warning as to 

 certain popular errors about the young fry of sundry 

 well-known species. Nothing is more common than to 

 hear it asserted that sprats are only immature herring. 

 This is a complete mistake. Believe it not. Sprats are 

 a very distinct species of the herring genus, and they 

 never grow much bigger than when they appear, hroches, 

 at table. The largest adult sprat measures only six 

 inches, while full-grown herring may attain as much as 

 fifteen. Moreover, herring have teeth on the palate, 

 always wanting in sprats, by which means the species 

 may be readily distinguished at all ages. When in doubt, 

 therefore, do not play trumps, but examine the palate. 

 On the other hand, whitebait, long supposed to be a 

 distinct species, has now been proved by Dr. Giinther, 

 the greatest of ichthyologists, to consist chiefly of the fry 

 or young of herring. To complete our discomfiture, the 

 same eminent authority has also shown that the pilchard 

 and the sardine, which wo thought so unlike, are one 

 and the same fish, called by different names according 

 as lie is caught off the Cornish coast or in Breton, Portu- 

 guese, or Mediterranean waters. Such aliases are by no 

 means uncommon among his class. To say the plain 

 truth, fish are the most variable and ill-defined of 

 animals ; they differ so much in different habitats, so 

 many hybrids occur between them, and varieties merge 

 so readily by imperceptible stages into one another, that 



