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Part III. — Tenth Annual Report 
1 seen in March, from the 1st to the 6th, females whose ovaries were 
' manifestly emptied, but which, at the same time, contained still some 
' large ova measuring 1 mm.' M. Marion concludes that the sardine 
spawns from October to March, but never in the summer months, that its 
ova are pelagic as are those of the anchovy, that although not proved, 
still in combination with the observations of Dr Raffaele at Naples, he 
looks upon the evidence as incontestible. He also desires to control, if 
not altogether stop, the destruction of Alevins at present carried on with- 
out hindrance on all the littoral of the south of France. 
There is an essential difference between the views of M. Pouchet and M. 
Marion. Both note the irregularity of condition as to sexual maturity, 
both have two classes of sardines of different sizes — the one immature — the 
other ripe or ripening. But in the case of the Mediterranean fish the ova 
are apparently thrown before the fish leaves the coast, while M. Pouchet 
finds no evidence of the fish spawning until they leave in a ripe condition 
(the Sardines de derive). At least, he remarks that* ' the sardines ready 
' to spawn, regularly show themselves on our coasts, mostly during the 
:* months of April and May : that he has never found eggs of the sardine 
' in the sea at Concarneau, although his attention was specially called to 
' this point ; and finally, that they never meet on the oceanic coast the 
' young sardine called " poutine " in the Mediterranean.' All these facts 
point to the pelagic character of the sardine in his view, and that the first 
months of its existence are passed in the unknown regions of the Atlantic. 
He looks upon those sardines that come in during the winter as stragglers 
and strayed, leaving behind the regularly defined migrations. 
The smallest sardine that showed mature ova to Pouchet was 193 mm., 
say 7f inches, much longer than the mature fishes of the Mediterranean. 
This, too, when the Mediterranean sardine spawns from October to March, 
while that of Concarneau is only found mature in April and May. Again 
the Prince of Monaco in his admirable Monograph of the Sardine on the 
Coasts of Galicia says, ' Towards the month of December, it will confide its 
' ova to the herbage which carpets the bottom, and it will then make an 
' excursion into the profound depths which are in the vicinity.' The 
Prince gives us no reasons for this belief, and is evidently imbued with the 
ideas of Pouchet on the subject, as to the eggs being demersal. 
The pilchard spawns at the same time as the sardine according to 
Couch, ' in April and May they are habitually prepared to shed their 
' spawn, which they now do at a further distance from land, and even 
' deeper water than is the case at the warmer season of autumn, v>hen 
' again, early or later, they perform the same function' — October — 'the 
* season of spawning after the Equinox.' 
Let us leave aside the Mediterranean sardine, and consider- the 
Galician which spawns, according to the Prince of Monaco, at the bottom 
in December, ana is there called 'the pilchard;' the Concarneau sardine 
which is only found mature ia April, and May ; and the Cornish pilchard 
which is mature and ready to .spawn also in April and May, as well as 
in the autumn. The sardine of Concarneau, according to Pouchet, must 
spawn on the bottom and in deep water, as its eggs are never found by 
him on the surface at the time when the fish are ripe. The pilchard of 
Cornwall spawns, according to Couch, on the surface in great glutinous 
masses — which ought surely to be readily seen if thrown near Con- 
We know that the herring — a closely allied fish to the pilchard — 
spawns at the bottom in glutinous masses, while the egg of the sprat, also 
* Pouchet, Extrait du Journal d 'Anatomic et de Physiologic, No. de Nov. Dec. 
1890. 
