of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 
1G1 
1 fcions) explain exactly the life of the sardine. What I have seen in the 
' Mediterranean has led me to different views The sardine is in 
' the Mediterranean, as in the ocean, a nomadic lish, whose movements 
* should necessarily be determined by the two great causes which govern 
1 the conduct of all other species, the constant search for food and the tem- 
* porary requirements of spawning. For in Mediterranean coasts, the 
J sardine shows itself frequently and commonly on the surface. It can un- 
* doubtedly descend, either to avoid severe weather, or to gather the small 
' creatures on which it lives, or for other causes I may add that, 
1 in the Adriatic, it keeps itself usually at a certain depth, whence it must 
' be attracted, as in the ocean, with a bait composed of broken-up Car- 
* cinus moenas. .... I believe, indeed, that we may find baulks of sar- 
' dines at a great distance from the shore ; but I hesitate to admit not only 
* that it lives usually on the high seas, for example between Algeria and 
' France, in the centre of our Mediterranean basin, but even that it pene- 
' trates there regularly In any case, and without wishing to 
4 deny that the sardine can make the crossing direct from the Algerian to 
i the Provencal coasts, I do not admit that it proceeds far from the 
* reach of man, nor in the offing, nor to great depths at a constant tem- 
' perature, in order to spawn. I think that the sardine throws its eggs 
* near the shore, preferably in sheltered bays, and that the eggs are floating 
' eggs like those of the majority of commercial (edible ! ) fishes.' There 
seems to us to be a distinct absence of certainty as to whether the two 
fishes treated of are the same or not. We are even disposed to ques- 
tion whether the same fish is always spoken of as the sardine even in the 
same district. Professor Marion seems to write of Alosa sardina (no 
authority) (see statistics of taxed fish on coast of Marseilles *), but 
in his monographs he does not give the scientific name. The same may be 
said of Pouchet, who only speaks of ' sardine.' Mr Cornish f says of the 
pilchard : ' It occurs, of course, off the French coasts as the sardine. 
' And the Spaniards have a mode of curing it which altogether beats our 
* English method, as may be seen by a comparison of our cured pilchards 
in this Exhibition with those in the Spanish division.' Dr Day seems to 
accept this identification of the pilchard and the sardine, in which Cuvier 
seems to have led the way. But Couch, who knew the pilchard better 
than most other naturalists can pretend to do, arrives at a different conclu- 
sion. Writing of a small catch, he says : ' In the year 1843 six hogs- 
* heads of (pilchards) taken, the fish about 6 inches long, and multitudes 
' are so small as to pass through the meshes of the drift-nets. They are 
' marked with spots along the sides, which grow faint and disappear as the 
* colours fade. Compared with a pilchard of the same size I find the 
? marking of the head different ; the plate encircling the eye on its lower 
1 part and under being narrower, and gathered on the lower margin, where 
1 the pilchard is plain. The sardine appears to be the only fish of this 
? family, except the pilchard, that has the dorsal fin at the centre of 
4 gravity.' J The Cornish fishermen who are in the habit of visiting the 
Galician coast seem to consider the large sardine as distinct, differing at 
least in certain seasons from the pilchard, and some we observed 
seemed smaller in the scale and more brilliantly marked when fresh, than 
the pilchard.§ In any case it would appear to be a local variety, as the 
sardine is often in best condition when the pilchard is out of condition. 
* Travaux de Zoologie Apyliquee, 1889 {Station Zoologique d'Fndoume), p. 8, 
t Papers of the Conferences (London, 1883). 
+ Couch's History of the Fishes of the British Islands, vol. iv. p. 112. 
§ Yarrell says : ' They frequent the French coasts and are seen on those of Spain ; 
' but on neither in considerable numbers, or with much regularity.' 
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