82 PILCHARD. 



placed; but, being thus removed from their natural situation, 

 they did not pass through a further process of development. 



There seems to be no reason to doubt that these fishes 

 require two, and probably three years to enable them to attain 

 their full growth; and the occasional preponderancy of numbers 

 of the young above the old will tend to explain some unusual 

 circumstances which at times have occurred to the great disap- 

 pointment of the fishermen, and which otherwise appear 

 unaccountable. Thus the fish which may be caught at one 

 time will be of such diversity of size as to imply a great 

 difference of age in the individuals; but for several years in 

 the early part of the present century, the larger portion of 

 the schools consisted of fish of such diminutive size as to be 

 able to pass through the small meshes of the scans, which, 

 therefore, were eminently unsuccessful. At this time the 

 larger fish must have taken an unusual direction, and the 

 difference of numbers that were caught under these circum- 

 stances was so great, that, Avhereas the average quantity 

 supplied for exportation in each year has been given, by good 

 authority, as thirty thousand hogsheads of fifty gallons each, in 

 the year 1829 there were only five hundred hogsheads. 



That a capricious search after food may exercise an influence 

 on the wanderings of the Pilchard is probable; but some 

 uncertainty still exists concerning the nature of its usual suste- 

 nance, and it is only by supposing it to vary at different times 

 that we can venture to account for the considerable difference 

 which exists in its health and condition at different times, and 

 especially at the seasons of its spawning in the spring and 

 autumn. At the former they are so destitute of oily matter as 

 to be of little value, so that the taking them is chiefly for the 

 supply of bait for taking other fish, and nothing is so suc- 

 cessful for this purpose. But when they appear towards the 

 end of July, and until the season of spawning after the equinox, 

 their condition is very different, and none of this family can 

 by many degrees be taken in comparison with them. It is 

 commonly believed that at this time their food consists of the 

 seeds or early growth of sea vegetables, in supposed search of 

 which they have been seen in large numbers quietly searching 

 at the bottom in a small depth of water. On examining the 

 stomach it is not usual to find anytliing besides a pulpy mass 



