WHITEBAIT. 
485 
Clupea alba may be the young of tbe herring. It may be 
urged against this idea that the herring is found in full roe 
during the month of September ; but this^ after all^ would be 
a slender argument when it is remembered that the herring 
has two distinct periods of spawning in the year. The ana- 
tomical characters^ as given in books^ are to some extent 
against the hypothesis ; but we fancy this part of the question 
requires to be re-worked before any definitive conclusion is 
accepted. 
It is at all events a remarkable coincidence that in both the 
herring and the whitebait the number of the vertebrae and of 
the rays in the dorsal^ pectoral^ and caudal fins is the same. 
The geographical range of the whitebait is wider than is 
generally supposed. Ifc has been found in the Firth of Forth 
by Mr. Parnell and, as we have before stated, it is recorded 
as a native of the French and northern coasts by MM. Cuvier 
and Valenciennes. Doubtless, too, it would be discovered 
in many other of our rivers, were nets of a sufiiciently small 
mesh for its capture employed. The food upon which it sub- 
sists consists almost exclusively of young shrimps and ento- 
mostraca. From the stomach of a single specimen, which 
measured about an inch and a half, we removed as many as 
six of these creatures, some of which were quite half an inch 
in length. Of course only the chitonous skeletons were 
present. Yet it is a matter worthy of the consideration of 
those who frequently indulge in whitebait. If, for example, we 
admit that shrimp skeletons are not of a very digestible or 
nutritious character, and are likely to irritate the delicate sur- 
face of the human stomach ; and if, then, we allow that at a 
dinner an individual eats from sixty to one hundred whitebait, 
and that each of them contains the skeletons of four young 
shrimps, we shall arrive at the unpleasant conclusion that the 
said individual has swallowed from two to three hundred sharp, 
spiny, unpleasant, undis solvable skeletons, which must in- 
evitably affect his stomach injuriously. 
To those who have found the anatomical details of this 
paper uninteresting, the above fact may afford something for 
contemplation. At all events, in the pleasing hope that it 
may prove useful to some, we add the wholesome though 
hackneyed maxim, Crede experto, and for the present bid 
those who have so far accompanied us Au revoir. 
* “ Proceedings of the Eoyal Society of Edinburgh,” vol. i. (No. 9. 1836), 
pp. 141-2. 
2 K 2 
