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Part III. — Tenth Annual Report 
The immature sardines usually tinned have been considered sprats, and 
the term Sprattus applied to them, but Pouchet writes of the 
sprat in 1889 :* 'This has made its appearance in prodigious quantities 
' in the Ba} of Douarnenez, where they have fished it with seines, 
' which they tolerate for this fish, but throw every difficulty in the way of 
* their use for the sardine. The sprat appears in enormous shoals, all of 
1 small fishes of an average of 80 mm. (the largest 90, the smallest 65), and 
1 weighing about 3 grammes. This fish, too small for the factory and to do 
1 up in tins like the sardine, has been sold by the barrel as manure. Cer- 
1 tain fishing boats combine for the seining, two and two, taking up to 50 
' barrels daily. The weight of the barrel is from 160 to 170 kilos. 
' This gr*eat destruction of fish has, as usual, called forth recriminations. 
1 Many small sardines are declared to be amongst the sprats. In a parcel 
1 of 47 of these fishes that I have received, and had certainly not been 
' picked, not a single sardine was found. The hints given me by the 
' Commissary of Marine Registration at Douarnenez confirm my 
' observations as to this : " I am informed," he writes us, " as to the 
' question you have put to me — the proportion of small herrings taken 
* with the sprat is much less than I fancied; it is estimated at 1 per 10000 
' at the most." ' A few young herring in the same way are found 
amongst our sprats, only frequently to a far greater extent. Yet it is 
but comparatively recently that the sprat and herring have been clearly 
demonstrated to be distinct, and we doubt not the same uncertainty pre- 
vailed between the sardine and the sprat formerly in France. This makes 
it the more necessary that care should be taken in the definition of the 
particular species investigated, more especially as we learn from Couch 
that three separate species were known in the Mediterranean by the name 
of Sardine. 
From the above quotation it is clear that it was the dimensions of the 
sprats taken, as too small for tinning, that alone prevented them being 
don3 up as sardines ; and it is quite possible that the young of 
various species or varieties, as well as the smaller species themselves, may 
be tinned under the generic name of Sardine. 
As to the sardine proper of the Atlantic coast, we are disposed to view 
it as differing from the pilchard to some small extent ; while the pilchard 
at the same time occasionally visits the coast of Galicia, and a stray school 
of the mature sardine may reach the coast of Cornwall. But we cannot 
view the difference as greater than that found between the herrings of 
different Scottish lochs. 
The fact that the sardine as usually tinned, however, is the immature 
fish of one of the herring tribe, points to the reason why it is superior for 
this purpose to a mature or comparatively mature fish like the sprat, 
whose bones are more calcareous, and less gelatinous. So that young 
herring of the same size would really be better fitted for competing with 
the tinned sardine trade than the sprat. But the sardine, as tinned, is 
more a question of size than of species, like our whitebait in all likelihood, t 
The great sardine fishery of Galicia, however, is quite a different matter, 
and may be considered as a duplicate of the pilchard fishery of Cornwall. 
Leaving aside the question of identity of species, both are fishes of some eight 
to ten inches long, both are captured close inshore at certain seasons with 
great seines, and both are specially treated for the southern markets. Mr 
* Rapport sur la Sardine. Extracted from Journal d" Anatomic et de Physiologic, 
July-August 1S89, p. 391. Note 2. 
t J. T. Cunningham of Plymouth Laboratory informs me he has never found any 
sprats in sardine tins, but this is probably due to the greater care exercised in the 
higher class tinned fish sent to the English market. 
