FISHES 



In consequence of the geographical features of Cornwall, the penin- 

 sula being surrounded on three sides by the sea, and having a great extent 

 of coast-line in proportion to its terrestrial area, marine fishes occupy a 

 large and important place in its natural history, and play an important 

 part in its economics. In numbers of individuals its waters are scarcely 

 as productive as those of the North Sea, but in number and diversity of 

 species they are surpassed by few if any other parts of the British or Irish 

 coasts. Projecting in a south-westerly direction into the Atlantic Ocean, 

 the peninsula extends into the area of distribution of several southern 

 species, for example the pilchard, which are rare or wanting in other 

 parts of Britain ; and wanderers or visitors of other southern or oceanic 

 species, more frequently reach the coasts of Cornwall than other coasts of 

 the British Isles. On the other hand, species of northern distribution, 

 as for example the haddock (Gadus ceglefinus) and the viviparous blenny 

 (Zoarces vivifiarus), are rare or absent from Cornish waters. 



Until lately the county has been fortunate in the number and 

 enthusiasm of its local ichthyologists. In the earlier half of last 

 century Dr. Jonathan Couch at Polperro studied the local fishes with 

 unremitting attention, and his observations, first published in occasional 

 papers, are collected for the most part in his complete work on the 

 Fis&es of the British Islands (18625). ^ e a ^ so published special 

 details on Cornish fishes in the Cornish Fauna in 1838, of which a 

 second edition, with the fishes revised by T. Cornish, was published in 

 1878. 



R. Couch and T. Cornish made observations at Penzance, which 

 were recorded in the Zoologist. Cocks noted remarkable captures at Fal- 

 mouth. During a long lifetime at Mevagissey the late Matthias Dunn 

 studied the natural history of marine fishes with remarkable success, and 

 added to the fish-lore of the county by the information and specimens 

 which he supplied to J. Couch, to Dr. Francis Day, and in his last years 

 to the Plymouth Laboratory, even more than by his own communications 

 to the scientific societies of the county and his other publications. 



Among marine fishes the pilchard is the most characteristic fish of 

 Cornwall : it occurs in great abundance off the coasts of this county, and 

 extends to the south coast of Devon, but is absent or extremely scarce on 

 all the other coasts of Great Britain. The pilchard is the same species of 

 fish which is called the sardine in France. Its habitat extends from Corn- 

 wall and the south coast of Ireland to the neighbourhood of Madeira and 

 throughout the Mediterranean. In the waters of the Atlantic however 



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