OF THE CORNISH PILCHARD FISHERY. 



13 



ponderated over zooplankton, this latter being composed of 

 certain copepods and other metazoa, certain only of which 

 were observed in the stomach contents. 



We thus have an instance of food observed uniformly 

 throughout six stomach samples of a type widely dissimilar 

 from that of the plankton occurring on the ground from 

 whence the fish were taken. 



Passing now to a consideration of the food of the summer 

 pilchard, the reader's attention is directed to the tabulated 

 results obtained from a group of observations made in 

 Mevagissey Bay and Mounts Bay in July and August, 1906. 



Here we have the results obtained from four series of 

 stomach material, together with that of a plankton sample, 

 taken in each case on the position from which the fish were 

 derived. A fairly regular correlation is shown between the 

 stomach material and plankton throughout the first three series, 

 but in the fourth we see three entirely aberrant examples, in 

 which food of the type described for certain of the winter fish 

 again makes its appearance. 



It should be remarked that for the purposes of the present 

 table only those species forming the bulk of the stomach 

 contents have been noted in the case of the plankton samples, 

 but in the working in extenso of the latter in the fourth series 

 no correlative feature was found to exist to account for the 

 food condition as indicated. We thus have another instance 

 of material occurring in stomach contents not common to the 

 plankton environment. 



The next table (Table No. 3) shows the proportions of 

 plankton species observed in a series of thirty-six stomachs 

 taken from fish caught throughout the height of the summer 

 fishery in Mevagissey Bay and the adjacent waters in 1907. 

 Each of these samples were worked ul extenso, practically the 

 whole of the stomach contents being submitted to a critical 

 examination. Unfortunately no plankton samples were taken 

 at the same time as the stomach series, but a general review 

 of the table affords some interesting comparisons. 



In the first place it will be seen that certain species well 

 represented in one sample will be entirely lacking or but 

 sparsely shown in others of the same series, e.g., C eniro pages 



