The Herring and Sprat Fishery of the Firth of Forth. 289 



months of February and March, and he found that any 

 appearance of herring fry gradually ceased, while the sprat, 

 Clupea sprattus, was most abundant ; even the occurrence 

 of young herrings, i.e., fish above five inches long, was rare, 

 until about the beginning of March, when for a day or two 

 they again made their appearance among the sprats in some 

 numbers, and then entirely disappeared. About the 10th 

 of March considerable quantities of very fine pilchards, 

 Clupea pilchardus, the gipsy herring, were brought to market, 

 along with herrings and sprats, and the writer of this notice 

 examined some dozens of them. The largest were fully 

 eight inches in length, and might readily be mistaken for 

 herrings, although upon a closer inspection the general 

 aspect of the fish showed marked distinctions even to the 

 eye, — being more slim and delicate, having smaller scales, 

 more firmly attached, and, when compared side by side 

 with the herring, giving one the impression that it might 

 be a young herring which had only just attained maturity. 

 The marked distinctions between this fish and the herring 

 need not be repeated ; Dr Parnell states them most accu- 

 rately, and says that it had been of late (when he wrote in 

 1839) a very rare fish in the Firth of Forth, as well as along 

 the whole eastern coast of Scotland ; while, about thirty 

 years previous, it had been as plentiful as the common 

 herring ; and that no specimen had then been caught in 

 the Firth since the year 1816. He adds that the pilchard 

 is easily distinguished from the herring, sprat, and white- 

 bait, by the position of the dorsal fin. If either of the 

 three latter fish be suspended by the anterior dorsal rays, 

 the head will be observed to dip considerably; whereas, if 

 the pilchard be thus suspended, the body will preserve an 

 equilibrium. The writer found that the fishwomen thor- 

 oughly apprehended this last-mentioned characteristic of 

 the pilchard as the one most obvious and uninistakeable 

 by an observer, and were quite aware of the nature of the 

 fish they were bringing to market as distinguished from 

 the herring, stating, that by many people they were not so 

 much liked as food. Many of the specimens were opened 

 by the writer, for the purpose of ascertaining the existence 



