106 



ANCHOVY. 



twelve rays ; the anal fin very small, and the dorsal 

 situated immediately over the abdominals. In all the 

 herring family the gape is proportionally shorter, the 

 muzzle less produced, and the rays in the gill-flap 

 fewer. 



The habits of all the herring family are similar ; 

 they are migratory, and migrate in shoals ; and, with 

 the exception of the shad, and those species which 

 frequent the great fresh-water lakes and do not mi- 

 grate to the sea, they all remain in the salt waler. 

 The anchovies inhabit more equatorially than the 

 herrings, and may be said to take up the sea where 

 they leave it oft'; though, owing no doubt to cur- 

 rents, the smaller itinerating fishes are very apt 

 to meet on the confines, or come a little way upon 

 each other's ground. They also appear to follow 

 the same law as the herrings in respect of quality 

 the most northerly inhabiting species are the best 

 in flavour, and also in flesh. Out of the six or seven 

 species which are named, the common anchovy, 

 so well known as a zest, and as forming a sauce for 

 almost all other fishes indiscriminately, is the only 

 one which has attained any great degree of celebrity. 

 One, or perhaps two other species, frequent nearly 

 the same places as the anchovy of commerce, and bear 

 about the same relation to it as the pilchard and the 

 sprat do to the herring. The remaining species are 

 found in the tropical seas, and none of them has 

 acquired much reputation there ; that may, however, 

 depend not a little upon the mode of curing. For, in 

 the case of the herring, there is no doubt that as well- 

 conditioned fish are taken on our shores as the Dutch 

 can procure ; and yet a Dutch pickled herring is very 

 superior to any thing of the name that can be pre- 

 pared in this country. Haddocks, too, are certainly 

 not worse upon many other parts of the coast than 

 they are on the shores of Aberdeen and Kincardine ; 

 and yet the delicious half-dried half-broiled haddocks 

 are no where prepared in their very highest state 

 excepting on the range of coast from Aberdeen to 

 Stonehaven. As good herrings are also obtainable at 

 many other places as at Yarmouth ; and yet there 

 are no red herrings equal in flavour to those which 

 are prepared there. The operations by which all 

 these are prepared are abundantly simple, and they 

 are said to be the same at all places ; but the effect 

 is so different, that there must be a difference in the 

 mode. 



Something may, no doubt, depend on the condition 

 in which the fish are caught ; and it is agreeable to 

 the analogy of all the migratory fishes, and also to a 

 well-known law of physiology, that the fish should be 

 better when taken not too near the spawning-ground, 

 or rather when not too near the time of spawning. 

 When the fishes begin to shoal (for in the case of the 

 whole family, the fishes are solitary except when they 

 approach the shores for spawning), they are always in 

 finest flesh and flavour ; and as the roes and milts 

 advance to maturity, they do so at the expense of the 

 fishes, which then become comparatively thin and 

 flavourless. This is in part proved by the fact that, 

 in the Mediterranean, which may be regarded as the 

 grand nursery-ground (if not the permanent head- 

 quarters) of the common anchovy, the finest ones are 

 obtained off the little island of Gorgona, and superior 

 to those taken nearer the main land. The common 

 anchovy is found in prodigious numbers along all the 

 shores of the Mediterranean, especially the European 

 ones, which, from their form, are of course the eddy 



shores, and as such abound most in food both for the 

 fish and the fry, and also disturb the spawn-beds the 

 least. The months during which the fishing is chiefly 

 carried on, are May, June, and July ; the best fish in 

 May, the most abundant in June, and inferior, mixed 

 with " shotten" ones, or those that have spawned, in 

 July. They are found not only in the Mediterra- 

 nean, but on the Atlantic shores without the Straits, 

 along the west of Spain and Portugal ; less abun- 

 dantly in the bay of Biscay ; rarely in the English 

 Channel ; and still more rarely to the northward of 

 the Straits of Dover. When, however, they do make 

 their appearance in the North Sea, it is on the eddy 

 shore, that of the Netherlands rather than England. 

 The fact that those fishes which come in shoals to 

 the shores for the purpose of spawning, choose the 

 eddy shores, just as those which feed in shoals sea- 

 ward (as the common cod, for instance) choose the 

 eddy banks upon which the revolving currents let fall 

 their deposits, is one of much importance in the eco- 

 nomy of the sea ; and if those eddies were well ascer- 

 tained and described, it would greatly extend the 

 theory of the fisheries, one of the most useful, though 

 unfortunately much neglected, branches of econo- 

 mical philosophy. 



The vulgar opinion [we do not, on any occasion, 

 use the word " vulgar," in an offensive sense, but 

 merely as expressive of " the herd of authors, who 

 follow their leaders as unreasoningly as sheep do the 

 ' bell-bearer'"] the vulgar opinion respecting ancho- 

 vies is still much the same as it long was respecting 

 herrings. They do not, like them, come from the 

 " polar seas," but from the Atlantic, and " enter the 

 Mediterranean in vast shoals," which, however, have 

 never been seen choking up the gut of Gibraltar, or 

 at all in that passage. The truth is, that, like all the 

 family, they disperse when the spawn is deposited, 

 and go to the nearest deeps ; but being apart from each 

 other there, they are just as seldom seen as the her- 

 ring, the shad, or the salmon are in the offings of our 

 own shores in the intervals between the breeding 

 times. That they are most abundant on the northern 

 shore of the middle longitude of theMediterranean, and 

 also in best condition, shows that there they have come 

 the shortest distance ; and that, though found in the 

 Atlantic, it is in smaller numbers, and the Mediter- 

 ranean is their grand home. The number caught 

 every year is immense ; and the only preparation 

 they receive is said to be drawing, decapitation, and 

 salting down in casks, containing about ten pounds on 

 the average, though they vary considerably. 



The real anchovy is about a span long ; less, of 

 course, when the head is removed ; plump and round 

 in the body ; brownish blue, with a silvery lustre on 

 the upper part, and silvery white on the under ; the 

 flesh is salmon-colour when salted ; but if the fish 

 are not in high season, it is pale as well as thin and 

 tasteless. There is another species in the Mediterra- 

 nean (E. mcletta) which bears about the same rela- 

 tion to the common anchovy that the sprat does to 

 the herring. 



It is said that the anchovies of commerce ere often 

 adulterated with an admixture of the sardine (Chipen 

 sordino), a fish very much resembling the pilchard, 

 only smaller in size ; but as it has neither the colour 

 nor the flavour of the anchovy, it can be used only in 

 mixture with that. 



The trade in anchovies is very considerable, and 

 the quantity annually imported into Britain is not 



