of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 
100 
or 30 miles — the spawning or ripe fish never being taken inshore as in the 
case of the herring; but only ' immature or shotten fish on the feed.' So 
Cornish : 1 before our pilchard season commences, numerous shoals of very 
f large pilchards are met with by our mackerel drivers in the deep sea, 8 
' leagues and over south and west of the Scilly Isles. These large pilchards 
* are mostly females full of roe ready to be shed and unlike most fish in 
1 that condition are so dry and tasteless as to be utterly useless as food.'* 
These ova compare exactly with Raffaele's figures, considered by him to 
be pilchard. They could not possibly be herring ova, which are de- 
mersal. They could not be anchovys' ova these being spherical in shape. 
They could not be sprat ova, as these have not an oil globule. All these 
considerations led Mr Cunningham to support the view of Marion that 
the pilchard ova were pelagic. Since then he has hatched out the ova 
and carried the larva to the same stage as those taken in the tow-net. 
So that we may now accept it as assured that the pilchard ova, like that 
of the anchovy and sprat, are pelagic, and thus differ entirely from the 
herring, otherwise so closely allied to all three. One objection to the 
reasoning of M. Pouchet is his apparent disregard of the fact that the 
ripe ova of some fishes when expelled or before expulsion increase in size, 
and consequently decrease in specific gravity, so that the placing of im- 
perfectly ripe ova in the water is no test of their conduct under natural 
conditions. In any case, Cunningham's recent observations seem to have 
placed the pelagic character of the pilchard ova beyond question. 
This may seem a matter of little commercial importance, and yet it is 
probably of vital consequence to the fisheries of the Biscay coast. The 
fact that these fishes do not come inshore when they are spawning, but 
remain outside beyond the influence of the ordinary attack of the fisher- 
men, has probably secured to the Spanish coast its lengthened career as a 
great fishing region. Although very small fishes are now taken in some 
quantity, the great fishery has been one of fishes that have neither milt 
nor roe, but are either shotten or immature as in the case of the Cornish 
pilchard. What specially attracts them inshore at those seasons has 
not apparently been clearly ascertained, unless it is the wealth of 
infusoria as noted. Another view openly held by Spanish authorities is 
that the Dolphins outside drive the larger shoals into the bays, 
In any case a multitude of these fishes come inshore at the same time 
every year around the Galician coast. They appear, too, at the same 
period on the coast of West Cornwall, and it would seem as if, for our 
herring to get" a- hold in the same markets, they must be superior to the 
opposing article. For in Cornwall their market is glutted for the 
pilchard. We are told : ' Spain is running us so close in the business of 
* supplying salted pilchards for the markets of the Roman Catholic 
' countries, that we could easily find thirty to forty millions of fish for the 
f supply of a fresh fish market without feeling the loss of them. This 
' apparently enormous number would be a mere flea-bite out of our catch 
for a season. It would be a day's, or at most two days' successful 
' fishing for the seines of St Ive's alone.' f The same writer has told us the 
Cornish cure is inferior to the Spanish ; but since then Italians have 
entered into the business in Cornwall on a large scale, to prepare the fish 
specially to suit their own markets. 
The attempt to introduce the tinning of the small sardine in Cornwall 
has proved, we understand, a commercial failure, although no reason 
except, perhaps, the difficulty of getting the finest oil sufficiently fresh, 
presents itself to us. 
* Papers of the Conferences, p. 29. 
t Cornish, Papers of the Conferences, London, 1883. 
