IGO 
Part III. — Tenth Annual Report 
II. — REPORT ON SPANISH SARDINES. By W. Anderson Smith. 
In the principal factory in Coruna we find in prominent letters the 
statement that the fisheries of Galicia maintain 50,000 families. Ac- 
cording to Prince Albert de Monaco, at the present time 16,000 fisher- 
men live by the sardine fishery alone : the same authority mentioning 
that, from Bayonne de Galice to Vivero, it maintains 400 salting and pre- 
serving factories. This is a proof of the exceptional abundance of the 
fish, as in the other Biscay provinces, such as Asturias and Santander, all 
the sardines captured are preserved in tins or otherwise, but not salted in 
bulk. 
The absence of any important export of fish from Scotland to Spain, at 
this time, when Spain is yet unable to supply herself with more than 50 
per cent, of her consumpt, made it important that we should have a better 
knowledge of the Spanish trade, and ascertain the reason why our salted 
herrings were practically shut out from the Spanish market. The reason 
given by our Consul at Coruna, that the conservative habits of the Gallego 
is against novelty, is only so far satisfactory that it demands that we give 
attention to the mode of preparation desiderated in the Spanish market. 
The Consul at Bilbao notes that the only buyers there of salted herrings, 
when introduced, have been the French and English residents; the 
Spaniards preferring their own cured sardines. Other consuls hold out 
more encouragement, but the question seems to us to be more one of mode 
of preparation, and consequently it is essential in the first place to know 
how the Spanish sardine is manipulated. 
This Spanish sardine has become all the more important on account of 
the failure of the French sardine fishery for the last few years. In 1887, 
Spain, mainly Galicia, exported to France 1,323,413 kilos. What propor- 
tion of the export has been tinned and re-exported as French sardines, of 
late, it would be impossible to say. But no doubt the French have been 
obliged to resort to Spain to supply their deficiency in sardines as they 
have long done for their wines. 
Before examining the Galician fishery more especially, we may glance 
at the whole sardine industry. This may be divided into two, — that of the 
Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic coast of Spain, and that of the Mediter- 
ranean. The two great labourers, scientifically, in these two fields are 
wholly at variance — amicably, and with a frankness which is an honour 
to science — as to the manner of the reproduction of their sardines ; and 
indeed, they seem undecided whether the two fish may not be sufficiently 
differentiated to be widely different in their mode of life in the open and 
enclosed seas. The serious consequences of the departure of the sardine 
from those parts of the coast where factories are established, make the 
study of the movements of this fish and their causes to be of paramount 
importance. The better to grasp the problems to be solved, we may 
give them in the words of Professor Marion, in his comparison of Pro- 
fessor Pouchet's views with his own : — 
' . . . For him, the sardine is a wholly erratic species, approaching the 
' shore only accidentally, under what impulse is unknown, living 
f commonly in the high seas, and even in regions the furthest from the 
1 coast, descending to the abysses of the ocean, reproducing itself there, far 
1 from the influence of man, and without regularity, or at least without 
4 being subject to the influence of the normal succession of the seasons. 
' In fine, the egg of the sardine would probably fall to the bottom as soon 
i as it is expelled I do not, however, believe that (these supposi- 
