I/O MARKETABLE BRITISH MARINE FISHES 



The sardine occurs also in the Mediterranean, and there, at 

 Marseilles, for instance, it is a smaller fish when adult and mature, 

 not exceeding 7^ inches. But the sardine industry, the business 

 of tinning sardines in oil, is not carried on apparently on the 

 coasts of the Meditei'ranean, or if so has by no means such an 

 importance as on the west coast of France. 



Habitat. — As already mentioned the pilchard extends through- 

 out the Mediterranean, but is a smaller race, just as plaice are 

 smaller in the Baltic than in the North Sea. The oceanic 

 sardine or pilchard extends from the southern shores of England 

 and Ireland to Madeira. There is no great fishery for these fish 

 on the south and south-west coasts of Ireland, although large 

 numbers are sometimes taken near Cork, and the fish are 

 abundant on these coasts. On the other coasts of Ireland or 

 Britain the fish are only ocasionally taken in small numbers. 

 The regular productive fishery does not extend eastward of the 

 Bill of Portland, nor north of St. George's Channel. The distance 

 to which the fish wander from the coast it is not at present 

 possible to estimate with much accuracy. They are said to be 

 seen at times fifty miles from the Scilly Islands. 



Breeding. — According to Day, the number of eggs is about 

 60,000. 



The relations between the breeding of the fish and its capture 

 are in the pilchard exactly the reverse of those which exist in 

 the case of the herring. Among the pilchards caught for the 

 market it is a rare occurrence to find any which are in a gravid 

 condition. When pilchards caught in the ordinary course of the 

 fishery are opened, their generative organs are usually found 

 to be small and undeveloped'; the process of spawning has 

 either been recently completed, or the ovaries and testes 

 have scarcely begun to enlarge in preparation for the next 

 period of reproduction. In fact ripe pilchards do not form 

 the object of a regular fishery. In my own experience I have 

 seldom known ripe pilchards to be caught in a pilchard net. 

 They are usually taken accidentally by nets intended for other 

 fish ; most of those that I have seen were captured in mackerel 

 nets. The explanation of this lies of course in the habits of the 

 fish. Ripe pilchards are usually only met with at a considerable 

 distance from land, twenty to forty miles out to sea. Pilchard 

 nets, whether drift-nets or seines, are usually shot near the shore, 



