170 APPEARANCE OF THE PILCHARDS. 



be a migratory fish ; but its habits are now known to 

 resemble those of the herring, and when it approaches 

 the coast it does so for spawning purposes. It frequents 

 a lower latitude than the herring, and on the British 

 coast it is seldom found in any quantity except in 

 Devonshire and Cornwall. But it occurs in the Atlan- 

 tic waters of France, Spain, and Portugal, a*d in the 

 Mediterranean Sea. 



The English pilchard-fishery is regulated by several 

 Acts of Parliament, the first of which dates from the 

 reign of Elizabeth. The capital invested in it is probably 

 little less than 1,000,000 sterling. It is principally 

 carried on during the months of August and September 

 the fish being caught either with drift-nets or seine-nets, 

 but principally with the latter. Each seine, or sean, 

 measures 360 feet in length, and 36 feet in depth. 



About the middle of the spring the pilchards rise from 

 the deep water, and congregate together in small shoals 

 which, as the season advances, unite into larger ones, and 

 towards the end of July, or a little later, assemble in one 

 mighty host. This formidable phalanx, led by the 

 " Pilchard King," and the most powerful of the tribe,* 

 advances towards the south-western shores in such vast 

 numbers as actually to discolour the water, and pursued 

 by a legion of enemies, dog-fish, hake, cod, and sea-birds. 

 It strikes the land generally to the north of Cape Corn- 

 wall, where a detachment, swarming up the north-eastern 

 coast, constitutes the summer-fishery of St. Ives, while the 

 main body steers between Scilly and the Land's End, and 

 spreads as far north as Bigbury Bay and the Start Point. 

 The spectacle of this vast fish-army, as it passes the 



* Couch, " Report of Penzance Natural History Society," 1847. 



