PILCHARD. 
82 
placed; but, being thus removed from their natural situation, 
they did not pass through a further process of development. 
There seems to be no reason to doubt that these fishes 
require two, and probably three years to enable them to attain 
their full growth; and the occasional preponderancy of numbers 
of the young above the old will tend to explain some unusual 
circumstances which at times have occurred to the great disap- 
pointment of the fishermen, and which otherwise appear 
unaccountable. Thus the fish which may he caught at one 
time will be of such diversity of size as to imply a great 
difference of age in the indi-vdduals ; but for several years in 
the early part of the present century, the larger portion of 
the schools consisted of fish of such diminutive size as to be 
able to pass through the small meshes of the seans, which, 
therefore, were eminently unsuccessful. At this time the 
larger fish must have taken an unusual direction, and the 
difference of numbers that were caught under these circum- 
stances was so great, that, whereas the average quantity 
supplied for exportation in each year has been given, by good 
authority, as thirty thousand hogsheads of fifty gallons each, in 
the year 1829 there were only five hundred hogsheads. 
That a capricious search after food may exercise an influence 
on the wanderings of the Pilchard is probable; but some 
uncertainty stUl exists concerning the nature of its usual suste- 
nance, and it is only by supposing it to vary at different times 
that we can venture to account for the considerable difference 
which exists in its health and condition at different times, and 
especially at the seasons of its spawning in the spring and 
autumn. At the foi-mer they are so destitute of oily matter as 
to be of little value, so that the taking them is chiefly for the 
supply of bait for taking other fish, — and nothing is so suc- 
cessful for tills purpose. But when they appear towards the 
end of July, and until the season of spawning after the equinox, 
their condition is very different, and none of this family can 
by many degrees be taken in comparison with them. It is 
commonly believed that at this time their food consists of the 
seeds or early growth of sea vegetables, in supposed search of 
which they have been seen in large numbers quietly searching 
at the bottom in a small depth of water. On examining the 
stomach it is not usual to find anything besides a pulpy mass 
