126 ANCHOVY. 



procured it from Herring nets at Wick, in Scotland, It is 

 found also in the Baltic, and by Nilsson along the coasts of 

 Scandinavia. Fabricius also reports from Greenland that he had 

 found examples in the stomachs of seals, and that they are 

 caught in Davis's Straits at a long distance from land. In the 

 westmost portion of the British Channel these fish are often 

 taken in drift-nets employed in the fishery for Herrings and 

 Pilchards; but this is only when they are sufficiently large to 

 become entangled in the meshes as these chance to be doubled 

 together, and there is sufficient evidence to shew that if nets 

 of finer twine, with meshes of proper size, were employed, 

 sufficient might be taken on the coast of Cornwall to supply 

 the full amount of what is consumed in our own country, the 

 whole of which, as sent to us from the Mediterranean, has been 

 so much as, with a tax on the importation of twopence in the 

 pound, to bring into the exchequer year by year the sum of 

 £1,764. As regards the time when these fish are near us, I 

 have met with an example in March from the stomach of a 

 Mackarel; in summer they are found at St. Ives, in the ground- 

 seans employed in catching Launce. Mr. Dillwyn mentions 

 them at Swansea in June, and they have been found heavy 

 with spawn in September, as also in November, and sometimes 

 they are seen so late as December. But it is only in the 

 Mediterranean, which they are supposed to enter from the 

 Atlantic for the purpose of shedding their spawn, that a fishery 

 is carried on with the expectation of profit; the principal 

 adventure being with drift-nets, to which the fish are attracted 

 with artificial light, which is kept burning in an iron framework 

 for the purpose. Duhamel describes at considerable length 

 the fishery for Anchovies in the Mediterranean; the most 

 successful method being to attract the fish by means of a 

 light, and then to shoot a net at some distance round the 

 boat that bore it. This plan was pursued with several boats 

 in succession through the night, for even in moonlight it did 

 not succeed. 



The largest Anchovy I have seen measured eight inches in 

 length; the sides and cheeks compressed, but round over the 

 back; the whole length to the fork of the tail about six times 

 and three fourths of the depth. Upper jaw projecting much 

 beyond the lower, gape wide, mystache slender, passing much 



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