ORDER IJ. BONY FISHES. HERRINGS AND PILCHARDS. 189 
be his food.’ The herring, having spawned, retires to deep water, and the 
fishing ends for that season. While inhabiting the depths of the ocean, its 
food is said, by Dr. Knox, to consist principally of minute entromostraceous 
animals, but it is certainly less choice in its selection when near the shore.” 
C. Pilchard. —This species, in size and some other respects, resembles 
the herring. Its range, however, is farther south. It is not common in 
our waters, and, so far as I know, has never been an object of pursuit by 
our fishermen ; but to the poor people of the British and French coasts, it 
is of inestimable value. 
The older naturalists considered the Pilchard, like the herring, as a visitor 
from a distant region, and they assigned to it also the same place of resort 
as that fish, with which, indeed, the Pilchard has been sometimes confound- 
ed. To this it will be a sufficient reply, that the Pilchards are never seen in 
the Northern Ocean. They frequent the French coasts, and are seen on 
those of Spain, but on neither in considerable numbers, or with much regu- 
larity ; so that few fishes confine themselves within such narrow bounds. 
On the ceast of Cornwall, they are found throughout all the seasons of the 
year, and even there their habits vary in the different months. In January they 
keep near the bottom, and are chiefly hauled up in the stomachs of ravenous 
fishes; in March they sometimes assemble in schools, but this union is only 
partial, and not permanent, and only becomes so in July, when they regu- 
larly and permanently congregate so as to invite the fisherman’s pursuit. 
The season and situation for spawning, and the choice of food, are the chief 
reasons which influence the motions of the great bodies of these fish; and 
it is probable that a thorough knowledge of these particulars would explain 
all the variations which haye been noticed in the doings of the Pilchard in 
the numerous unsuccessful seasons of the fishery. 
They feed with voracity on small crustaceous animals, and Mr. Yarrell 
frequently found their stomachs crammed with thousands of a minute species 
of shrimp, not larger than a flea. It is probable, when they are in search 
of something like this, that fishermen report they have seen them lying in 
myriads quietly at the bottom, examining with ‘their mouths the sand and 
small stones in shallow water. The abundance of this food must be enor- 
mous to satisfy such a host. “ When near the coast,” says the author of the 
Ilistory of British Fishes, “the assemblage of Pilchards assumes the ar- 
rangement of a mighty army, with its wings stretching parallel to the land, 
and the whole is composed of numberless smaller bodies, which are perpetu- 
ally joining together, shifting their position, and separating again. There 
are three stations occupied by this great body, that have their separate influ- 
ence on the success of the fishery. One is to the eastward of the Lizzard, 
the most eastern extremity, reaching to the Bay of Bigbury in Devonshire, 
7 
ad 
NO XVI. 
