Pilchards

Abstract

IN this far-off corner of the world the news has only just reached me that my name has been quoted in your valuable columns with Mr. Cunningham's article on the growth of the pilchard or sardine. As it is a matter which much interests me, I should like to have a word or two on the subject. Personally, I have no doubt as to the identity of the pilchard and sardine. Seeing the matter has been so well threshed out by our greatest ichthyologists—Couch, Day, and Günther—the spawning of the fish being only a question of local conditions, and not even giving us aid in determining the species—note the doings of the herring when about this work around the islands of Great Britain, which keeps shedding its roe for eleven months out of the twelve in these waters. As to the question of the English pilchard being so much larger than those of other countries, this to my mind is a subject of grave doubi, and I fear Mr. Cunningham's informants have not looked up the matter thoroughly.