The Pilchard. 
369 
CHAPTER XYI. 
The older naturalists had an idea that the Pilchard, like 
the herring, was a visitor from distant shores. ^ d 
This is so little true, that the fact is the 
pilchard is never seen in the Northern Ocean, the resort 
which they assigned to it, and the few that sometimes 
wander through the Straits of Dover or the British 
Channel have evidently suffered from passing so far out 
of their accustomed limits ( Yarrell , vol. ii. p. 97). The 
pilchard is found almost exclusively on the western shores 
of England and the south of Ireland. Sir Thomas Browne 
speaks of some stragglers on the Norfolk coast: “ Though 
this sea aboundeth not with pilchards, yet they are 
commonly taken among herrings ; but few esteem thereof, 
or eat them ” (vol. iv. p. 332). Cornwall has always been 
the chief fishing station for the pilchard; and Camden 
reports that in his day— 
“a most rich, revenue and commoditie they have by those little 
fishes that they call pilchards, which swarming, as one would say, in 
mighty great skuls about the shores from July unto November, are there 
taken, garbaged, salted, hanged in the smoke, laied up, pressed, and by 
infinite numbers carried over into France, Spain, and Italie, unto which 
countreys they be very good chaffer, and right good merchandise, and 
are there named fumados.” 
Chester attributes medical qualities to this fish:— 
“ The little pilcher, 
Whose onely moisture prest by cunning art. 
Is good for those troubled with aches smart,” 
( Love’s Martyr , p. 100.) 
2 B 
