WHITEBAIT, a small fish, called by Val enciennes Rogenia alba, and for which he con stituted the genus Rogen:a as a distinct genus of the Herring family (Clupeide), but which is now regarded by naturalists as merely the fry of the herring or of similar fish. The whitebait-fishery is actively prosecuted on some parts of the British Coast, particularly in the estuary of the Thames, where the whitebait is very abundant in spring and summer, beginning to appear in the end of March or early in April. Adult whitebait are caught on the coasts of Kent and Essex during winter, and in this condition are about six inches in length. White bait is found also in the Forth. It is much in request as a delicacy for the table. At the time when ordinarily captured, whitebait are only frim one and one-half to four inches in length. They are caught by means of bag nets sunk four or five feet below the surface of the water. For several months they continue to ascend the river in shoals with the flood-tide and descend with the ebb-tide, not being able to live in fresh water. They are fried with flour or crumbs;
they arc often laid on a napkin and sprinkled with fine flour and a little salt, rolled about till well covered with flour and then thrown into a pot of boiling lard, where they remain till they are of a pale-straw color. The whitebait has the body more compressed than the mature herring; belly serrated; lower jaw longer than the upper; scales very soft, small and thin, and very easily rubbed off; color silvery white, greenish on the back The food of the white bait seems to consist of minute crustaceans. It is probable that under the name whitebait the fry of all the British Clupeickr— the pil chard, the sprat and the shad — are indiscrimi nately taken and used like the fry of the her ring.