THE PILCHARD. 485 
THE HERRING is undoubtedly the most valuable of our British fishes, and 
-the one which could least be spared. - It is at once the luxury of the rich and 
the nourishment of the poor, capable of preservation throughout a long 
period, easily packed, quickly and simply dressed, and equally good, whether 
eaten fresh or-salted, smoked or potted. 
During the greater part of the year the Herring lives in deep water, where 
its habits are entirely unknown. About July or August the Herring is urged, 
by the irresistible force of instinct, to approach the shores for the purpose 
ot depositing its spawn in the shallow waters, where the warm rays of the 
sun may pour their vivifying 
infliience upon the tiny eggs 
that will hereafter produce 
-.creatures of so dispropor- 
tionate a size, and where 
the ever-moving tides may 
fill the water with free oxy- 
gen as the waves dash on 
the shores and fall back in 
whitened spray, thus giving 
to the water that sparkling 
freshness so needful for the 
development of the future 
fish. 
The Herrings, when they once begin to move, arise in vast shoals, and 
direct their course towards some part of the shore. In their choice of 
locality they are most capricious fish, sometimes frequenting one spot for 
many successive years, then deserting it for a length of time, and again 
returning to it without any apparent reason for either course of proceeding. 
They are essentially gregarious while on the move; and each shoal is so 
closely compacted, and its limits so well defined, that while one net will be 
filled almost to bursting with Herrings, another net, only a yard or two 
distant, will be left as empty as when it was shot. 
The Herring is one of the fish that cannot endure absence from water, 
dying almost immediately after it is taken out of the sea, and thus giving 
‘rise to the familiar saying “as dead as a herring.” 
The food of the Herring is extremely varied, even in the comparatively 
shallow waters, and its subsistence during the time it is submerged in the 
deep is necessarily unknown. In the stomach of the Herring have been 
found crustacea of various kinds, molluscs, the spawn, and fry of other fish, 
and even the young of its ; 
own kind. It can be taken 
with a hook, and has been 
known to seize a limpet 
that was used as a bait. 
The colour of the Herring 
is blue above with greenish 
reflections, and the rest of 
the body is silvery white. 
After the fish has been dead 
for some hours, the cheeks 
and gill-covers become red, ; 
as if from injected blood. PILCHARD. —(Clupea pilchardus.) 
THE value of the HERRING family to man is almost incalculable. The 
PILCHARD and the herring are very similar in appearance, but may be 
‘easily known by the position of the dorsal fin, which in the Pilchard ts so 
