151 



The Reproduction and Growth of the Pilchard. 



By 

 J. T. Cmminghaiu, 91. A. 



With Plate X. 



In my paper on tlie Reproduction of Fishes occurring at 

 Plymouth, published in this Journal, vol. i, p. 10, 1889, I identified 

 as the egg of the pilchard, a pelagic egg commonly found in the 

 tow-net in summer, and distinguished by three obvious characters, 

 namely : (1) an unusually large perivitelline space ; (2) a single 

 large oil-globule in the vitellus ; (3) a completely subdivided 

 yolk. I also stated that ripe spawning pilchards occurred off 

 Plymouth between June and October, but always at some distance 

 from land, being usually taken in mackerel nets worked to the south 

 of the Eddystone. My identification of the egg, taken in the sea, 

 was founded upon a comparison between it and the eggs pressed 

 from the ripe but dead female pilchards obtained from mackerel 

 fishermen. The latter eggs were already dead, and did not float, 

 but sank in sea water, but they possessed a single oil-globule, and 

 the yolk in them consisted of a number of yolk-spheres. The large 

 perivitelline space was absent, because it is only formed when living 

 eggs are extruded into sea water. 



Raffaele had previously described two kinds of pelagic eggs 

 found at Naples, which he recognised, from their divided yolk and 

 the characters of the larvae hatched from them, as belonging to 

 some species of Clupeoid. The larger of these eggs he attributed 

 to Glupea pilchardus, but did not give his reasons. This egg is in 

 all respects similar to that identified as belonging to the pilchard by 

 myself at Plymouth. It is well known that the sardine of the 

 French coast and of the Mediterranean is the same species of fish as 

 the pilchard of Devon and Cornwall. 



The natural history of the sardine has been investigated in recent 

 years by two distinguished zoologists in France, namely, by Professor 



