80 PILCHARD. 



Of its distribution in the south of Europe we are not able 

 to say anything, until it is rendered certain whether the Pilchard 

 be the same fish with the Sardine of the coasts of Spain and 

 the Mediterranean: a question concerning which we will offer 

 a few remarks when we enter on a description of the fish as it 

 occurs in our own seas. But it is to the coast of Cornwall, and 

 the shores of Devon bordering on that county, that we must 

 look for the history of this fish, and the value of its fishery; 

 and if we do not refer also to the south of Ireland for the same 

 purpose, it is because the subject has not been there attended 

 to in the manner its importance demands. It is in the dis- 

 tricts just named that the Pilchard is to be regarded as a 

 native, for it is there they propagate, and may be found at all 

 seasons. There also they perform their migratory motions, 

 which, with an approach to regularity, are yet attended with 

 such variety as to stamp their habits and motions with the 

 character of capriciousness, and which belongs also to the 

 other species of this family in such a manner as to constitute 

 for all of them a common likeness. The same remark was 

 made so long ago as in the time of the poet Oppian, who, 

 under the name of Chalkis, refers to a fish which his translator 

 supposes to be no other than our common Pilchard. 



"Pilchards and Shads in shoals together keep, 

 The numerous fry disturbs the mantling deep; 

 No home they know, nor can confinement love, 

 But, fond of hourly change, unsettled rove; 

 Now choose the rocks, now seek the wider seas : 

 No place can long the restless wanderers please. 

 They soon grow weary when they once enjoy; 

 And pleasure will, as soon as tasted, cloy." 



And ^hus it happens, that although it is known when the 

 season of the fish's arrival is come, so little is certain of the 

 time when the schools will approach a particular district, that 

 the fishermen are kept in daily suspense, and their individual 

 success from year to year becomes a matter of great uncertainty. 



The usual course of the movements of the Pilchards is that 

 they seek the deeper water of the nearer portion of the 

 Atlantic in the colder season of the year; and that they are 

 then at the bottom is often known by their being found in 

 the stomachs of the larger fishes which are caught with lines 



