A HISTORY OF CORNWALL 



the fish reaches a larger size, and therefore two races have been distin- 

 guished, the oceanic sardine and the Mediterranean sardine : the former 

 reaches the length of 10 or even n inches, while the latter seldom ex- 

 ceeds 7! inches. 



The sardines which are sent to England preserved in oil in air- 

 tight tins, although small fish, are not derived from the Mediterranean, 

 but are the young of the oceanic race. They are from 5 to 7 inches long, 

 and are caught on the west coast of France from Brest to Bordeaux, and 

 also on the Atlantic coasts of Spain and Portugal. On the French coast 

 these small sardines appear in great numbers in summer from May to 

 November. 



The pilchards caught in Cornwall are from 7 to 10 inches in length, 

 usually 8 or 9 inches. These larger fish are also caught on the French 

 coast in winter. 



It would naturally be presumed that the smaller fish would occur 

 also on the Cornish coast, and, in fact, that is the case to a certain extent. 

 But pilchards under 7 inches in length are usually so scarce in Cornish 

 waters that it would be impossible to depend upon a supply of them for 

 manufacture. In some seasons they are abundant in November and 

 December in the neighbourhood of the Rame Head, and at times thou- 

 sands of them are caught in the seines, but their occurrence is very uncer- 

 tain. The present writer when holding a post under the Technical 

 Instruction Committee of the Cornwall County Council was authorized 

 to carry out a systematic series of experiments with French small-meshed 

 nets and the French method of fishing, and the experiments were con- 

 tinued for two seasons in Mount's Bay, Falmouth Bay, at Looe and 

 Mevagissey, but without any more success than is indicated in the above 

 conclusions. 



It has been conclusively established that the summer sardine caught 

 off the French coast is immature, and it is probably a year old. The 

 study of the reproduction of the mature sardine was found to be difficult, 

 as fish containing ripe spawn were seldom caught. Of the vast numbers 

 caught by the fishermen of Cornwall very few show any marked signs 

 of the reproductive condition. It was ultimately ascertained that ripe 

 pilchards are usually only to be found at a considerable distance from 

 the coast. In fact, the habits of the fish are the reverse of those of the 

 herring : pilchards approach the coast in order to feed, and go seawards 

 when about to spawn. Matthias Dunn observed years ago that the ripe 

 but unfertilized spawn floated in a bucket of sea-water, and at the Ply- 

 mouth Laboratory the present writer proved that the fertilized spawn 

 was normally buoyant, and possessed features which made it easy to 

 identify the ova when collected from the sea. It was found that such 

 ova occur constantly in the sea off the south coast of Cornwall and Devon 

 from May to September. 



The history of the investigations concerning the spawn of the pil- 

 chard is somewhat curious, and a brief summary of it may be of interest. 

 Matthias Dunn's observation, made in 1871, that pilchard eggs floated in 



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