212 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 



as soon as that essential object is effected, the shoals that haunt 

 the superficial waters disappear, but individuals are found, and 

 many are to be caught throughout the year. So far are they 

 from being migratory to us from the north only, that they visit 

 the west coast of Cork in August, arriving there much earlier 

 than those which come down the Irish Channel, and long 

 before their brethren make their appearance at places much 

 farther north. Our common herring spawns towards the end of 

 October, or the beginning of November, and it is for two or 

 three months previous to this, when they assemble in immerjse 

 numbers, that the fishing is carried on, which is of such great 

 and national importance. "And here," Mr. Couch observes, 

 " we cannot but admire the economy of Divine Providence, by 

 which this and several other species of fish are brought to the 

 shores, within reach of man, at the time when they are in their 

 highest perfection and best fitted to 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 entomostra- 

 ceous animals, but it is certainly less choice in its selection when 

 near the shore. 



Although the common herring ot our northern seas is beyond 

 all doubt the most important of the tribe, yet there is no sea, no 

 coast, where other species of the same family are not a source of 

 abundance to man, and of astonishment by their vast numbers. 



Thus the enormous shoals of Pil- 

 chards appearing along our south- 

 western coasts are not less valuable 

 to the fishermen of Devon and 

 Pilchard. Cornwall than the common herring 



to those of the North Sea. 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 confounded. To this it will be a sufficient 

 reply, that the pilchard is 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 regularity? 

 so that few fishes confine themselves within such narrow bounds. 

 On the coast of Cornwall they are found throughout all the- 



