Ticsr. 



458 SPRAT HERRING. Class IV. 



the bones will not dissolve like those of the 

 latter. Mr. Forster tells me, that in the Bal- 

 tic they preserve them in the same manner, 

 and call them Breitling, i. e. the little deep 

 fish, as being deeper than the Stromling, or 

 Baltic herring. 

 Descrip- The sprat grows to about the length of five 

 inches ; the body is much deeper than that of 

 a young herring of equal length ; the back fin 

 is placed more remote from the nose than that 

 of the herring,* and we think had sixteen f rays. 

 But one great distinction between this fish, the 

 herring, and pilchard, is the belly ; that of the 

 two first being quite smooth, that of the last 

 most strongly serrated. Another is, that the 

 herring has fifty-six vertebras ; this only forty- 

 eight. 



* As a farther distinction, it may be observed, that if a straight 

 line be dropped from the forepart of the dorsal fin, it will, in the 

 hen-ins, fall a little in front of the ventral fins, but in the sprat it 

 will fall behind them. Neill in Mem. Wern. Soc. 545. Ed. 



f Block says seventeen. Ed. 



