The Herring and Sprat Fishery of the Firth of Forth, 289 
months of February and Marcli, 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 unmistakeable 
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 
