AUSTRALIAN PILCHARDS.
Distinct from the British species.
It would be improper to conclude this account of the Herring Family without a passing reference to the commercial mixture known as "Whitebait." Until comparatively late in the last century whitebait was regarded, even by scientific men, as a distinct species, and there were even some who declared that they had identified peculiar characters. It is now, however, common knowledge that the so-called "whitebait" is neither more nor less than a mixture of young herrings and sprats, the former predominating in summer, the latter in winter. Other fishes are also found in the dish, and, appropriately enough, at a recent banquet given by the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers, at which the writer had the pleasure of "assisting," a plate of whitebait was found to include no sprats, but the fry of herrings, gurnards, and sand-eels: this was in the month of July. Whitebait are caught in special fine-meshed nets in river-estuaries; and although they make a capital dish for the epicure, the large supplies needed for the restaurants probably entail a most regrettable sacrifice of valuable food-fishes, which, if left a year or two, would provide food for ten times the number of consumers. It would, however, be too much to expect that epicures should give up such an unrivalled dish for this cause. Moreover, if these little fishes were not captured by man, it is highly probable that a large proportion would fall victims to birds or other fishes.
CHAPTER XV.
BONY PIKE, BOW-FIN, STURGEON, REED-FISH, AND BICHIR.
BY W. P. PYCRAFT, A.L.S., F.Z.S.
The present chapter deals with the remaining forms belonging to that great assemblage of fishes known as the Bony-mouthed group, which includes all the members of the class save the Lung-fishes on the one hand and the Shark Tribe on the other.
This great assemblage, as we have already remarked, is divided into two sections—the Fan- and Fringe-finned Fishes. The fishes presently to be described belong partly to the one and partly to the other of these divisions, and were at one time, together with the Lung-fishes, regarded as nearly allied, and as forming but a single group, which, on account of the structure of the scales, was known as the Enamel-scaled group.
The Bony Pike, the Bow-fin, and the Sturgeon are the last of the Fan-finned Fishes.