95 



intervals by others with ripe roes right up to the end of 

 August ; after that the shoals consisted entirely of spent indivi- 

 duals. The period from the end of June to the end of August 

 may therefore be taken as the spawning season of the oil- 

 sardine on the West Coast ; it may be that spawning is a little 

 earlier in the north than in the south, as the shoals appear to 

 arrive off the South Canara coast rather earlier than off Calicut 

 and Cochin, but this is one of the questions requiring more 

 exact observation that has yet been given. After spawning, 

 the nalla-matthi rapidly grow fat and become so oily that there 

 is difficulty in curing them as food and, in consequence, are 

 largely turned into oil and dried for fertilizer. In September 

 these fat-laden sardines begin to be caught and enormous hauls 

 are made in some seasons during the months of October, 

 November and December. In January the fat loading their 

 tissues begins to decrease and bv the end of March thev are 

 practically free of fat and mint on this account for canning. 

 Practicallv the same evcle of events occurs on the East Coast 

 of Ceylon and on those sections of the eastern shore-line of the 

 Madras Presidency (Tuticorin to Cape Comorin and along the 

 Vizagapatam and Granjam Coasts) frequented by sardines, where 

 shoals appear towards the end of September to disappear in 

 February on the Ceylon Coast and about the end of April on 

 that of Ganjam. The spawning season and dates of arrival and 

 departure of the other sardines 0. fimlriata (Chala matthi) and 

 0. Me agree generally with those of C. lontjiceps^ but neither 

 ever attain the extreme fatness of this more important species. 



67. Both from what I heard from fishermen and from 

 observations made at sea I believe we have everv reason to 

 conclude that during normal seasons, i.e., those during which 

 large catches are made at intervals from July to March, the 

 migration of these sardines, which occurs sooner or later after 

 March, is a comparatively short one. Judging by what little 

 we know of the life-history of other species of sardine in Europe 

 we should infer that, as there, the general movement is probably 

 not one parallel with the coast but one more or less at right 

 angles to it, a migration from shallow water into deep. Many 

 facts support this in the case of the Indian sardine under notice, 

 among others, the observation made during our visits to Calicut 

 inshore fishing grounds at the end of October when we found 

 that, as the result of a cyclonic disturbance in the neighbour- 

 hood of Cape Comorin and of a resulting strong swell and current 

 from the South, the shoals of sardines previously abundant at 

 Calicut disappeared entirely and did not return till, at the end 

 of six days, normal weather conditions were re-established. 



