reach’s herring. 
107 
between the muscular fibres; although something of this api)ears 
in the finer fish caught about July. The dorsal fin is behind 
the centre of gravity, with nineteen rays, the first very short. 
Pectorals placed close below the hindmost gill-cover, having 
fifteen rays; ventrals beneath the dorsal, having nine rays, with 
a free scale at its root, half its length; anal fin wider than in 
the Pilchard, with sixteen rays; tail forhed. Colour of the 
back dark bluish, a tinge of pink often on the sides, silvery 
below; behind the top of the head tinted yellow; fins semi- 
transparent; along the belly a ridge, with scales not easily 
counted. The air-bladder is silvery, long, and slender; much 
more slender forward to the base of the skull, where it ends 
between two projecting processes, to which it is joined by two 
diverging sets of fleshy fibres; posteriorly it reaches close to 
the vent; and in its course it receives a lengthened and slender 
tube from the end of the stomach, the use of which seems 
uncertain. It is the same in the Pilchard. 
LEACH’S HEKRING. 
Glupea LeacUi, Yakrell; Br. Fishes, vol. ii, p. 193. 
]VIk, YarreIjL was of opinion that he had ascertained the 
existence of a species of Herring that was different from the 
common kind, and of which he gave the chaiacter, that it 
was found heavy with roe at the end of January, which it does 
not deposit till the middle of February. Its length is not more 
than seven inches and a half, and its depth near two inches;” 
and in proof that the time of spawning and difference of the 
quality of its flesh are decisive marks of a difference of species, 
a quotation is produced from the Essay on the Herring, by 
Dr. Mac Culloch. In Mr. Yarrell’s further description of this 
fish, besides dwelling on the greater comparative depth of the 
fish, he also mentions the dorsal fin as somewhat anterior to 
the place it occupies in the kindred species; and the number 
of vertebrae as being fifty-four, whereas in the Common Herring 
they amount to fifty-six. 
