SPRATS AND THE SPRAT FISHERY.

Timaru Herald, Volume XL, Issue 2944, 29 February 1884, Page 3

SPRATS AND THE SPRAT FISHERY.

(Scotsman.) The ■prut— or garvie, aH it ia called m Scotland — is the smallest of the " commercial fishes " of Great Britain, attaining, bh it iloes, a length of only five or six inches, and an averago weight of half an ounce. Its Bmallneas, coupled with its close rosemblance to the herring m form and Ijnbits, gave rise to tho belief — not quite extinct yet — that :it wa»

j merely the young oil that fish. Any one wishing to satisfy himself that a sprat is not a herring, but merely a diminutive near relation of the latter, has only to get a handful of these fishes at the fishmongers', where they are superabundant at present. Among them he will bo almost certain to find one or more young herrings, to distinguish which from sprats it is only necessary to draw the finger eently along the belly from tail to head. If the finger be opposed m its progress by a line of sharp spines, then the specimen is a sprat ; but if a slight roughness only is felt, then it is as certainly a herring. It will also be seen that the individuals with the saw-like arrangement on the belly agree with each other, and differ from the herring, m having the ventral fins placed somewhat m advance of the front edge of the fin on the back, instead of behind it as m the herring. The latter ateo has teeth on the roof of its mouth, which are absent m the sprat. An independent, although dwarf, member of the great herring family, the sprat is i'ound on most parts of the Atlantic coasts of Europe. In British waters it is most abundant along the east coast, being caught m enormous numbers m the Beauly Firth and the estuaries of the Tay, Forth and Thames. It is also common m the Solent and other points on the south coast. It is less common m the west. Buckland, indeed, stated that, so far as he knew, sprats are not found on the west ooast of Scotland. Like the other members of the family, sprats are wanderers, approaching the bays and estuaries of the Atlantic seaboard, usually m immense shoala, during the winter seE.son. Why they do so is still matter of doubt. Parnell, writing of the Firth of Forth, considers the sprat exceedingly sensitive to cold, and that itu migration into estuaries, which, owing to the mixture m them of fresh and salt water, are warmer than the outside ocean, is undertaken with the view of enjoying thid higher temperature. Buokland supposes that their object m coining into ourfirthii is to obtain "shelter from the turbulent ocoan, and food." That spawning, at least, is not the main purpose of this migration would appear from tho fact that only a small proportion of tho sprats taken m winter time are 3pawners. Tho whjre and how of sprat spawning is one of the numerous unsolved problems m ichthyology. It is tolerably certain, however, that like the herring and pilchard it has two spawnings m the year — one m summer and another m winter — sprats full of roe having been taken m tho south of England m June and December. Whether the eggs of t.he sprat sink to the bottom and there attach themselves as do those of the herring is still a moot point. In very many respects, however, the sprat has been shown to resemble the pilchard rather than the herring, and aa all the observations yet raada favor the view that the pilchard ispawna m the open sea, and r.hat its eggs are hatched at the iturface, the probability is that m this matter the sprat resembles the pilchard. We are equally at sea as to the food of th'i sprat, although it is not unlikely to prove similar to that of the herring and pilchard. The shoals of sprats are occasionally of vast proportions, and as they move near the surface there is seldom any difficulty m discovering their whereabouts. In the Ueauly Firth, for example, the seabirds are said to hover over them night and day, " screaming and swooping down to the water to pick up Bprats." On entering estuaries they are often accompanied by shoals of young herrings ; the latter, Recording to the Royal Commission on Trawling (1863), keep to the rear, or, sa regards the Firth, of Forth, to the east of thei sprats;. Naturally the shoals of iiprats keep apart from those of the herring, and it i 3 only during stormy weather and the prevalence ci high tides that t'ae two species get more or les3 mixed up. That the sprat fishery thus leads to the destruction of a considerable quantit}' of immature herring is certain. It may be doubted, however, whether the deiitruction is as great as has been alleged. Certain it is, as was stated m a report by Sir Lyon Playfair, it i 3 cot the interest cf the fisherman to take young herrings if they can get. sprats without them. The great market for sprats is m the English towns, and the English salesmen rofuse to take them if there be a large abundance of herring fry. The writer a few days ago examined 190 so called garvies taken from a. heap m a fishmonger's shop, and of these only eleven (or about G per cent) proved to ba young herrings, all the others belonging to the species Clupea sprattus. Two of these sprats hud attached to them a. couple of the parasites called after, if not peculiar to, this species. These are crustaceans, which begin life an free swimming creatures, but which, after attaching themselves ;o the fish, undergo m the female at least, acuriouß process of physical degeneration. The body becomes an elongated sac, from the hinder end of which there hang two . slander green threads — the creature's ovaries — each about two inches m length. Anohored usually to the fish's eye, these long green ovisacs float ribbon-like m the water. Tho fishermen call these parasites " Lantern Jacks," th* story, says Buckland, being that the fish which carries these " Lantern Jacks" is the pilot-fish of the shoal, and that the lantern is luminous at night, and the shoal steers itself m the course indicated by the bearers of the " Lantorn Jack." The smallnesß of these fishes is m some degree compensated for by their enormous (lumbers. In 1843 sprats appeared m such vast shoals on the Devonshire coast that the fiahermtm, by merely dipping their shrimp nets into the water, took them m quantities that enabled them to be sold at 3d per bvmhol. It is owing to the sudden glutting of the markoton such occasions thai: this fish is sometimes sold fur manure. It was oven alleged before the Commission on English Fisheries (1870) (hat fishermen m tho Thames estuary go out. to catch sprats for manure, obtaining usually from 7d to ll^d per bushel for them for this purpose Thousands of tons i if tli if small rish are taken annually, and although the supply fluctuates considerably, no npparent connection, suys Mr Holdsworth, can be shown to exist between tho scarcity or abundance of the uprat m any one season and tho extent of the fishery m the previous one. In other words, it may be said of this fish, &s it has boon said of the herring, that nothing that man does, or probably can do, is likely to havo any appreciable effect on the stock of sprats. The sprat fishery aiTords employment to it largo number of the poorer fishermen, during the winter monthß, when otherwiso they would bo to a largo extent without employment. It ulso affords a supply of the choapost animal food to bo found >.n thoso islands, for even after paying double, their prime cont for their carriage co London they can still be sold there at 2d per pound, while m Edinburgh and other towns on theoost coast estuaries they oan usually be had at a fourth of that price. Cheap as tlioy are, they are by no means nasty. They contain more oil than tho herring, and when placed on the fire, says Buckland, tho smoll ot their flesh burning "is much more savory nnd appotising thiin thai, of the horring." They are m groat request m London and the largo inland towns of England, and although it is a fact that lnrgo quantities of them are occasionally sold for manuro, this need not be regarded as evidence of uny want of appreciation of the sprat as an article of food. Tho markot ia ever liable to be glutted at

times with shoal-fish ; and if the her ring were only used m the fresh state ai the sprat is, a large proportion ol the heavy takes of herring m the nortt of Scotland would, it is to be feared, only find application as fertilisers oi the soil. By adopting some satisfactorj method of curing sprats it would be possible to avoid this waste of not only a wholesome, but a really delicate food. In Norway and Sweden, whose fiords abound m spratß, those fish are placed m kegs and pickled with different kinds of spices like anchovies. They are also salted, and as many as 50,000 barrels are exported m one year. A much appreciated fish m this country is the preserved sardine, oi which 3 million tins are annually imported. Sardines are simply small pilchards, and at Mevagissey, m Cornwall, the smaller pilchards are now being preserved as Cornish sardines ; while at Lowestoft an important trade m tinned sardines, made from English sprats, ia said to be now carried on. We have it on the authority of Mr Anderson Smith of Ledaig, that a sardine from the west of France, a small pilchard from Cornwall, or a sprat from the north of Scotland, are practically equally good if prepared with equal skill and care. If this be so, it is a pity that Scottish sardines should be sold to the farmer for manure at a few pence per bushel, while we import French sardines at so great a cost.