ANCHOVIES IN THE ENGLISH CHANNEL. 333 



ancliovies is in some way related to tlie mildness of tlie winter. It 

 is most desirable to ascertain whether the aDchovies have reached 

 the Moray Firth with the warm Atlantic water that during western 

 winds rushes through the Pentland Firth^ or by travelling along the 

 east coast through the cold Arctic water that wells up from the 

 bottom in the vicinity of the Dogger Bank.^^ I am incliued to think 

 that further inquiries will show that the anchovies in the Moray 

 Firth come neither the one way nor the other, but that these fish are 

 permanent residents in the North Sea. 



The migration theory receives some apparent support from the fact 

 that the anchovy fishery in Holland takes place in the summer months, 

 namely May and June, while the anchovies have only been taken on 

 the south coast of England in the winter, from November to January. 

 But, on the other hand, as we have seen above, anchovies breed 

 in summer from May to September at Naples, and doubtless at other 

 places of the Mediterranean coast of Europe. It is exceedingly im- 

 probable that the anchovy should breed only at the extreme north 

 and the extreme south of its range, and not at any intermediate 

 point. Are we to believe that all the anchovies which live in the 

 Mediterranean breed near the north coast of that sea, and never 

 migrate beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, and that all the anchovies 

 which live in the Atlantic Ocean -travel to Holland to shed their 

 eggs ? Or are we to suppose that all the anchovies after breeding 

 migrate to the ocean, and when the spawning period returns half of 

 them travel to Holland to breed, and the other half enter the Medi- 

 terranean and shed their eggs there ? Risso, in his Ichthyologie 

 de Nice (1810), states that some anchovies reside constantly at the 

 mouth of the Var, while others come in to the neighbourhood of 

 Nice regularly as migrants. 



It is probable that the anchovy will be found to breed in summer 

 on all the coasts where it occurs. This has not yet been ascertained — 

 in fact, I have not yet succeeded in finding whether the fishery for 

 anchovies on the west coast of France takes place in summer or in 

 winter. Ripe anchovies have, however, been obtained on the west 

 coast of England. Mr. Jackson, of Southport, on June 9th, 1878, 

 took some dozens in a shrimp trawl off that place, which were dis- 

 tended with ripe ovaries. I have not been able yet to obtain any 

 information concerning the natural history of anchovies, or the 

 anchovy fisheries on the coasts of Spain and Portugal. 



Some extremely interesting researches have been carried out by 

 the Dutch zoologist Prof. C. K. Hoffmann,* on the rate of growth of 



* Contributions to our Knoivledge of the Life-history and Reproduction of the 

 Anchovy. Published as Appendix II to the Verslag van den Staat der Nederlandsche 

 Zeevisscherijen over 1885. 'S Gravenhage, 1886. 



NEW SERIES. VOL. I, NO. III. 24 



