PILCHARD. II!) 



The quantity of Pilchards taken is sometimes incredibly 

 large. A fisherman now alive was present once at the 

 taking of two thousand two hundred hogsheads of Pilchards 

 in one scan ; but the greatest number heard of as taken at 

 one time is stated by Borlase at three thousand hogsheads ; 

 in reference to which Pennant has made an astounding error, 

 in reckoning by mistake thirty -five thousand fish to a hogs- 

 head, instead of three thousand five hundred. The number 

 since allowed has been three thousand, and is now two 

 thousand five hundred fine fish ; but it is scarcely necessary 

 to say that they are not counted. An instance has been 

 known where ten thousand hogsheads have been taken in one 

 port in a single day, thus providing the enormous multitude 

 of twenty-five millions of living creatures drawn at once from 

 the ocean for human sustenance. 



The different modes of curing the fresh fish are detailed 

 elsewhere. The various ports on the northern shore of the 

 Mediterranean are the principal places to which the preserved 

 fish are exported. 



Our term Pilchard is said to be derived from Pdtzer, 

 a name by which this fish was known to some early North- 

 ern Continental authors. A few Pilchards make their ap- 

 pearance occasionally in the Forth about October, generally 

 preceding the Herrings ; but the great shoals appear to 

 belong almost exclusively to our south-western shores. They 

 are seldom seen east of Devonshire ; but in August 188-i 

 a shoal of Pilchards were observed in Poole Harbour, and 

 so many fish were taken that they were sold in the market at 

 a penny a dozen. In May 1838 I obtained one Pilchard in 

 the Thames. 



Smith's History of the County of Cork contains a full 

 and interesting account of the Pilchard fishery in Ban try 

 Bay. They have been noticed also on the coast of the 



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