Lights in the Cornish Fisheries. 135 



rious fishes, such as the pilchard and herring, find their food. To 

 suppose that they do not eat, as fishermen imagine, because 

 food is not found in their stomachs, would be an anomaly in 

 the laws of nature, that no sound physiologist can admit. 

 • Nor, indeed, is that presumed fact fairly stated. If the 

 stomachs of these fishes are widely examined they will not be 

 found empty, though we cannot detect organized forms in 

 them, as we find entire crabs in the stomach of a cod-fish. 

 Nor is this surprising, when we consider how small and how 

 tender the tribes of marine worms and insects are, and how 

 rapid is the digestive power of fishes. And, to come more 

 nearly to the point in question, I have had further occasion to 

 observe, during various summers in the same seas, that while 

 some shores abounded in such animals, such food, others were 

 entirely destitute, and not only so, but that in one summer, 

 during two entire months, scarcely a single animal was to be 

 found, not one medusa, for example ; while, in a previous or 

 subsequent one, the seas were alive with them. 



Here then is, or may be, a cause, or the cause, of the recent 

 absence of the pilchard from the Cornish coasts, or of its com- 

 parative absence, that absence concerning this fishery, imme- 

 diately, as it relates to the shallow soundings near the shore. 

 But whatever the cause be, if their only change is to have 

 quitted those soundings for deeper water, as has been more 

 than once said, it is by the project in question that it is pro- 

 posed to recal, or entice, and circumvent them ; should they 

 have entirely abandoned the coast or channel, or should the 

 race be absolutely diminished, there can be no hopes. But if 

 they do revisit the coast still, however distantly, a fact which 

 can be ascertained, I must think that Cornwall will not show 

 its usual acute attention to commerce or industry, if it does not 

 persevere in these efforts, and in a more efficient manner. The 

 contingent gain so often experienced is tempting, and it is more- 

 over true that a very extensive capital is lying dormant, or pro- 

 ducing actual and annual loss. 



They may be reminded here, that the places of the fish 

 during the time of the trials which they made might have been 

 such as to render the lights invisible, or so distant as to. render 

 those inefficacious ; nor, speculating on this influence as expe- 



