THE PILCHARD. 185 



hours in the brine; they are then taken out, strung 

 by the head on little wooden spits, and hung in a 

 chimney formed to receive them ; after which a fire 

 of brush-wood, which yields much smoke, but no 

 flame, is kindled under them, and they remain there 

 till sufficiently smoked and dried ; when they are 

 put into barrels for carriage. 



The Herrings are supposed to feed on a crusta- 

 ceous sea insect, called by Linnasus Oniseus marinus. 

 They may be even caught with an artificial fly: an 

 indication of their also sometimes seizing the winged 

 insects. 



THE PILCHARD*. 



About the middle of July, the Pilchards, which 

 are a smaller species of Herring, appear in vast 

 shoals off the coasts of Cornwall. These shoals re- 

 main till the latter end of October, when it is proba- 

 ble they retire to some undisturbed deep, at a little 

 distance, for the winter. It has been supposed, but 

 improperly, that, like the Herring, they migrated 

 into the Arctic regions. If Pilchards performed 

 any migration northwards, we should certainly have 

 heard of their being occasionally seen and caught on 

 their passage ; but of this we have no one authen- 

 ticated instance. The utmost range of the Pil- 

 chards seems to be the Isle of Wight in the British, 

 and Ilfracomb in the Bristol Channel. Forty years 



* Clypea pilcardus. Turtoti's Linn. Perm. Brit. Zool. vol. 3. 



tab, 68. 



N 4 



