SPRAT. 
Ill 
and although some are preserved by smoking, in some measure 
as the Herring is prepared, and they are even imported from 
abroad in that condition. Yet the quantity taken sometimes 
very much exceeds the sale for any of these purposes; and 
it has therefore grown into a common practice to purchase 
them for manuring the land, and the nets have even been 
put to sea with no other view than thus employing the 
produce. Sprats are not usually sold by number or weight, 
but by measure. The nets are employed at from close to the 
land to the distance of about three miles, and the price 
varies from sixpence to eighteen-pence the bushel. Mr. 
Mitchell informs us that in December, 1861, in Scotland, 
when Sprats were abundant, they were sold at from two 
shillings and sixpence a bushel, at a time when the price of 
Herrings was five shillings the hundred. 
A large Sprat may be five or six inches in length, but the 
more usual size is three or four inches; the body compressed, 
deeper than in tlie Herring and Pilchard, but tapering forward 
towards the head and mouth. Under jaw longest, both having 
very small teeth; mystache running back to the eye; top of 
the head flattened; eye rather large. Gill-covers as if divided 
into several pieces. Scales on the body easily lost. Along 
the belly a ridge with prominent serrations, the segments 
thirty-five to the vent, which structure will distinguish the 
Sprat from the young of the Herring and Pilchard, even by 
the sense of feeling: but other marks are — that the scales are 
more easily removed, the colour less bright, and with less 
reflections of tints when taken from the water. The dorsal 
fin also is nearer the tail, with eighteen rays, of which the 
first is short, and the two last united; the pectoral pointed, 
with eighteen rays; anal narrow; ventrals with eight rays, and 
not having a separate wing; tail foi'ked, with eighteen rays. 
Colour light blue on the back, all besides silvery, except that 
sometimes on the sides it is yellowish; the fins tinted with 
yellow. The number of vertebrae forty-eight or forty-nine, 
which is less than is counted in the Pilcliard or Herring. 
Cuvier says that the yellow on the sides occurs only in the 
season of spawning. 
It is to be observed that the relative position of the dorsal 
fin of this fish is not always as pointed out by authors Dr. 
