Saint-Jean-de-Luz, where they stay during the autumn and winter. Then they return to their 

 native waters. 



Sardines have floating pelagic eggs. They feed on plankton organisms, such as diatoms, 

 peridians and small crustaceans. These fishes have a great importance in the canning industry. 

 Young sardines in oil, tinned in France, Spain or Portugal are much in demand. Competing 

 with them are numerous sardine imitations prepared from sprat or young herring. However, 

 a ruling by a British Court of Justice recognised that the term " sardine " must be exclusively 

 reserved for the young of Sardina pilchardus. 



Large sardines or pilchards are generally prepared in tomato-sauce in oval tins. This 

 product originated in California, on the Pacific Coast of the United States. A related species, 

 Sardinops sagax or coenileus, lives there and is the object of a very important industry. Follow- 

 ing variations in the Pacific transgressions, the American pilchard left the coastal waters for 

 a cycle of nine years but came back to its old sector last year. The same fish is found again 

 along the Chilean coasts and also on the Atlantic coast of South Africa, where there has been a 

 remarkable increase in the fishery and cannery during latter years. In the Gulf of Mexico, 

 particularly in Venezuela, another fish, Sardinella aiirila, related to the European sardine, is 

 canned. 



From the beginning of April to October, small boats from the (^'.hannel ports and the Breton 

 coast take to the coastal fishery for mackerel. The boats and gear dilfer from place to place. 

 There are large boats from the north; caiques from Fecamp and Yport; cutters from Cherbourg; 

 llambarts from the Hague or Lannion; bisquines from Cancale or Granville; dinghies and sloops 

 from Finistere. These are all strong and well-rigged boats, remaining at sea for the whole season. 

 The tackle used is a weighted trailing-line carrying numerous hooks. In the Bay of Audierne 

 motor pinnaces catch mackerel in sardine nets. 



There is a fishery from large vessels by herring drifters from Boulogne and Fecamp and 

 dundees from Douarnenez, but this is carried out in more open waters from February to .June 

 in the Celtic Sea. The fishery moves on the arrival of the transgressions over the continental 

 shelf. It starts in April at the edge of the slope, to end in June at the mouth of the English 

 Channel. The hauling on board of a large drift-net should really be seen at sunrise. In the 

 rosy light of the dawn mother-of-pearl shades shine from the undersides of fishes just out of 

 the greenish, mist-covered waters. The mackerel fall stiffly on the deck and in their death- 

 throes gleam an intense purple, the epitome of their dying beauty. In harmony of shape, so 

 well adapted for swift movement, and in their deep-green, black-marbled upper parts merging 

 with their glittering flanks, these scombrids are the perfect type of open-ocean fish. This is an 

 end point of a long evolution of form, and the species is so well stabilised that anatomical differ- 

 ences, such as in the number of vertebrae, cannot be used for separating the local races over 

 its great range in the North Atlantic. 



The mackerel (Scomber scombnis) is found from Norway to the Canary Islands; in the 

 Mediterranean, the Black Sea; from Labrador to Cape Hatteras. Based on the differences in 

 growth, in time of spawning and the temperatures of the waters in which they live, three races 

 and several populations can be recognised. 



(a) Eastern Atlantic race; length from 13 J to 17| inches; spawns in May and June. 



— Northern population (Baltic and North Sea), in waters from 8° to 10° C. in temperature; 



— western population (Ireland, Celtic Sea, Iberian coasts), in waters from 10° to 14" C; 



— southern population (Cape Saint Vincent, Canaries) in waters more than 14° C; 



(b) Western Atlantic race : length from 17i to 21 J inches; spawns in May and June. 



— Nova Scotian population; in waters from 6° to 10° C; 



— New England population; in waters from 10° to 14° C; 



— Cape Hatteras population; in waters more than 14° C. 



68 A scorpion-fish (Scorpaena) from the Indian Ocean. 



A damsel-fish. Photographs hy Giinter Senfft. 



