226 PHYS0ST0M1. 



been taken with ground lines some distance from the shore: the largest fish, similar 

 to the mackerel, being furthest out to sea. Mr. Dunn found that at Mevagissey 

 pilchards of late years have averaged, from August 1st to November 1st, from 

 8300 to 3800 per hogshead. 



Migrations. — These fish are found off the coasts of Cornwall and Devonshire 

 throughout the year. In January they keep near the bottom, and are frequently 

 taken from the stomachs of line- caught fish. Considerable assemblages, mostly of 

 spent fish, have been observedjin February, becoming more abundant in March; but the 

 chief fishery commences with drift-nets in July and with seines in the succeeding 

 month. During the summer they may be met with from 20 to 50 miles from the coast, 

 as outside the Scilly Isles, and a considerable distance up St. George's Channel. In 

 or about August large schools of smaller fish extend from the Lizard so far as Bolt 

 Head, in Devonshire, further to the eastwards of which no very extensive fishery 

 is carried on, although considerable numbers are taken at Torbay, Teignmouth, 

 and Dawlish. Another large fishery — in fact a continuation of that already 

 referred to — stretches from the Lizard to the Land's End, while a third is present 

 on the north coast of Cornwall, having its chief seat at St. Ives, where the 

 fishermen assert the large pilchards arrive in October and November, about three 

 days subsequent to their appearance at Kinsale, in Ireland. Sometimes one of these 

 districts is full of fish, none being present in either of the others. Irrespective of 

 these larger migrations there are lesser ones, influenced by currents, tides, and 

 searchings for food ; they appear rarely to go directly against a current. 



Parnell (Pish. Firth of Forth, 1838) remarks that the pilchard has become of 

 late a very rare fish in the Firth of Forth, as well as along the whole eastern line 

 of the Scottish shores ; yet, about thirty years ago, it was found in equal 

 abundance in certain localities as the common herring. A few are taken 

 occasionally in the summer months on the Berwick and Dunbar coasts, but since 

 the year 1816 no appearance of a pilchard has been observed in the Firth of Forth. 

 We are likewise informed that pilchards were more than usually abundant at 

 Yarmouth in 1780, 1790, and 1799. 



From inquiries he had made, Couch tells us that some considerable 

 changes have taken place in the times at which the larger bodies of these fish 

 have arrived. Thus, for upwards of thirty years, at the middle of the last century, 

 the most successful portion of the pilchard fishery was carried on after the 

 autumnal equinox, and consequently by drift nets, since the seines could scarcely 

 have been exposed to the risks inevitable from stormy weather and long dark 

 nights. Towards the end of the century the principal fishing was from the 

 beginning of August to the end of September, and at that time a great increase 

 took place in the number of seines. Now (1868) the winter fishery along the 

 southward coast is the chiefly successful one, with the necessary result of a 

 diminution in the number of seine nets, there not being a fourth part in use 

 that there were fifty years ago. 



Many of the fishermen assert that the number of pilchards now captured in 

 Cornwall is much less than used to be the case. They point out numerous 

 small landing-stages, all of which during the last or present century were used 

 for disembarking the fishermen's spoils, but have now fallen into ruin or crumbled 

 to decay, owing to there being no longer any need for their services. It has been 

 said that the pilchards in some seasons swim low, due to diminished temperature 

 in the upper waters, or from some other cause, and consequently escape beneath 

 the nets. The amount taken of the summer fish is not an invariable index to the 

 quantity present, but more depending upon the course they select ; for if they 

 keep in deep water they avoid the seines, and should they swim low they escape 

 the drift nets. Mr. Dunn observes that during May and June these fish appear 

 to be in the deep waters of the English Channel ; that at this period the mackerel 

 nets used off Penzance have a large mesh for the purpose of taking the large 

 mackerel, and through this pilchards can easily pass. Whereas at Mevagissey the 

 nets used are for the lesser-sized mackerel, for which purpose a smaller mesh is 

 necessarily employed, in this the pilchards mesh or entangle themselves when 

 full of roe, being unable to pass through. The fishermen returning from the east 



