EDIBLE EISHES OF K£W SOUTH WALES. 181 



■wealth, and an almost exhaustless supply of excellent food is allowed to 

 escape witliout an effort to utilise it, nor need we hope to see any improve- 

 ment on the jjresent deplorable state of affairs until we import a race of 

 fishermen who will not be afraid of venturing to sea to reap the abounding 

 harvest there awaiting them. 



Though the great abundance of this species has been known for many 

 years, it will probably astonish and perplex the members of less sleepy 

 communities — we are referring to matters connected with our fisheries only— 

 to hear that during a constant attendance on our market for a space of eight 

 years we could count on the fingers of one hand the number of Pilchards 

 which have found their way thither. 



Giinther states that " this species is so closely allied to the European 

 Pilchard that it might be more properly described as a climatal variety," and 

 this error is copied again and again by subsequent writers on Australian 

 fishes ; as, however, there are not more than thirty series of body scales in 

 C. pilcliardus, nor less than fifty in C. sac/ax it is manifest that there can be 

 no possible resemblance between the two species. Day also points out that 

 whereas Grunther gives seven as the number of pyloric appendages in the 

 Pilchard that species possesses them in large numbers, and deduces therefrom 

 that the example from which Griinther took his description was a Sprat, that 

 being the only British species of Clupea in which so small a number is found. 



Macleay remarks : — " The usual time, so far as I can ascertain from the 

 fishermen, of its annual visit to the coast of New Sotith Wales is in June and 



July, but it is not easy to fix the time within a few weeks The 



shoals are described as enormous, covering miles of sea and accompanied by 

 flights of birds and numbers of large fishes. These shoals are generally 

 observed from one to three miles from the land, and are always proceeding 

 in a nortlierJij direction." Tenison Woods, alluding to their scarcity in our 

 market, says : — " Herrings are rarely seen in our markets, but this is due to 

 the fact that the shoals do not, as a rule, enter our harbors, and to fish for 

 them in the open sea requires appliances not at present in the possession of 

 our fishermen." 



On the Victorian coast, McCoy and Castelnau notice the occurrence of 

 this fish at various dates between August and January, and the former, in 

 the International Exhibition Essays, 18G6-67, gives an account of an extra- 

 ordinary visitation which took place in Hobson's Bay during August of the 

 former year ; he writes : — " They arrived in such countless thousands that 

 carts were filled with them by simply dipping them out of the sea with large 

 baskets. Hundreds of tons of them were sent up the country to the inland 

 markets, and through the citv for several weeks, thev were sold for a few 

 pence the bucketful, while the captains of the ships entering the bay reported 

 having passed through closely packed shoals of them for miles. As to how 

 far west of Victoria it extends its wanderings we have no means of ascer- 

 taining, but it is common on the coast of Tasmania, but not so much so as 

 the Sprat." 



Speaking of its abundance in New Zealand waters, Hector remarks : — 

 " This is a true representative of the Herring kind in these seas, and it visits 

 the east coast of Otago every year in Eebruary and March, and when the 

 schools migrate they extend as far as the eye can reach, followed by a multi- 

 tude of gulls, mutton birds, barracouta, and porpoises. So densely packed 

 are they in some years, that by dipping a pitcher in the sea, it would contain 

 half fish ; so that if large boats and suitable nets w^ere employed, thousands 

 of tons could be caught. In the beginning of April they appear in Queen 



