GROWTH, MIGRATIONS, FOOD AND HABITS 11/ 



fore conclude that the summer fish retreat towards the open 

 ocean. 



Mackerel and pilchards, which have no fixed spawning 

 grounds, do not make such extensive misfrations, and are not 

 entirely beyond the reach of observation at any time of the year. 

 The mackerel in the Channel comes nearer the coast in summer 

 and is found spawning in May and June up to about five or ten 

 miles from land, but it does not enter bays in pursuit of young 

 sprats until after the spawning season in August and September. 

 In winter it retires from the coast. The pilchard, on the other 

 hand, retires from the coast at the spawning season, and is 

 found, when spawning, chiefly from thirty to fifty miles off. It 

 remains on the coast in winter. 



An interesting subject, whose study is far from having been 

 exhausted, is the extension of southern or Channel fish along the 

 Continental coast into the North Sea. The anchovy is found in 

 considerable numbers in the Channel in winter from October or 

 November onwards. Although a regular fishery for it has not 

 yet been established on the English coast, it is taken regularly 

 in small numbers in drift nets or seines used for sprats, pilchards, 

 or mackerel on the coasts of Devon and Cornwall, and has been 

 in some years taken in considerable numbers in the Straits of 

 Dover in Nov^ember. There is a regular fishery for it annually 

 in the Zuyder Zee and the Schelde, in May, June, and July. 

 It seems certain, therefore, that the anchovies, which in the 

 Dutch estuaries spawn in summer, retreat in winter through the 

 English Channel. In a somewhat similar way the mackerel enters 

 the narrower southern part of the North Sea through the Straits 

 of Dover in summer, and supplies a regular annual fishery off 

 the coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk. Off Lowestoft mackerel are 

 caught in May and June, and again in September, October, and 

 the beginning of November. Perhaps in the intervening months, 

 July and August, they go further north along the Continental 

 coast, and the autumn fishing corresponds to their returning 

 migration. Thirdly, the tub or latchet {Trigla Jiinindo), which 

 is a constant inhabitant off Plymouth, is taken on the eastern 

 grounds of the North Sea near Heligoland in June, and off 

 the Dutch coast opposite Lowestoft in September. It probably 

 is found in these regions all the summer, but I am not certain 

 whether it retreats to the Channel in winter. 



