The Anchovy, smaller than any of the foregoing, may be distinguished by its projecting, shark-like snout and deeply cleft mouth. It is seen in England only pickled for table purposes, but the writer used fresh anchovies for bait almost daily during a stay of four months on the shores of the Mediterranean.
The two shads—the Allis Shad and Twaite Shad—are in some respects, though less important commercially, the most interesting of the family. Their habit of coming up rivers to spawn, like salmon, has been already noticed, but they appear to be more difficult to please than the other fish. The Severn used to be a noted shad-river, but the fishery has fallen off of late years. The Allis Shad grows to a weight of 7 or 8 lbs., and its pale green and silver scales are varied by some darker spots at irregular intervals on the shoulders and sides. The edge of the belly is serrated, like that of the sprat. The fish has a curious transparent eyelid, and its other peculiarities include an abnormally large number of gill-rakers, through which the water filters much as it does through the "whalebone" of whales. Its food is said to consist of small fishes and shrimps, as well as of vegetable substances. Though usually caught, for market purposes, in a seine-net, which is slipped round the shoal in shallow water, the shad is now and then taken on the hook, and instances of this are on record in the neighbourhood of Deal. The rivers of Morocco are very productive of shad, particularly the Bouregreg at Rabat, and the Um Erbeya at Azimur. At the latter town the writer has bought newly caught shad weighing 5 or 6 lbs. for native money equivalent to as many pence, and very excellent fish they proved in camp. The Twaite Shad is a somewhat smaller fish, attaining to a maximum weight of perhaps a couple of pounds. It is not known to differ materially in habits from the larger species.
Reverting for a moment to the herring as a type of the family, a few words may be said on some very interesting facts in connection with its life-history and commercial uses. In the first place, the fact that the spawn sinks to the bottom is of more importance than would at first sight appear, since it not only exposes this spawn to disturbance by the trawl, but also subjects it to the voracity of cod, haddock, and other ground-feeding fishes. Some little protection is afforded by a natural provision which enables the eggs to adhere to stones and weeds, but this cannot in the long-run be of much service against prowling fishes. The eggs of the shad, which likewise sink (in fresh-water), do not adhere in this way.
Photo by W. Saville-Kent, F.Z.S.] [Milford-on-Sea.
QUEENSLAND LUNG-FISH.
Known also as the Dawson River Salmon, on account of the colour and flavour of its flesh.
The migrations of the herring, again, have furnished almost as much material for argument to marine biologists as the migrations of birds in ornithological circles. Older naturalists described marvellous Arctic journeyings with careful attention to detail, much of which is now repudiated. Later theories hold that the shoals of herrings simply move, according to changes in the weather and temperature, backwards and forwards between the shore and the deeper water outside; and so far as the fishermen are concerned, the mere fact of the fish moving at any season of the year beyond reach of their drift-nets, which work at only moderate distances from the land, would be quite sufficient to convince them that the absent fish had departed on world-wide travels. Much of the former acceptance of these extensive migrations may have been due to confusion between the goings and comings of the different races of herrings now recognised by biologists. It is also probable that, when the identity and movements of these different "races" are more firmly established, we shall be able to clear up many of the difficulties at present surrounding the spawning-time of the herring, and to show that it does not, as sometimes alleged, deposit its spawn at every season of the year indiscriminately, but that some herrings spawn at one season, some at another. Although the herring is not, individually and by comparison with some other sea-fish, an enormously fertile fish, its numbers must be fairly large, when we bear in mind that something like 50,000 crans a week are, in good seasons, packed in Shetland alone. Taking, as an average, 750 fish to the cran, this gives a weekly curing of not far short of 40,000,000 of herrings in a single fishery. Owing indeed to the property, already noted, of adhering to stones and rocks, it is improbable that even the trawl troubles the eggs to any appreciable extent, as the stony ground on which the herrings generally spawn is not suited to the operations of the trawler. The spawning and life-history of the herring are, in fact, the converse of those of the plaice. The former deposits its eggs on the ground close inshore, and the young herrings, almost as soon as they are hatched, steer for the open sea and live near the surface of the water. The flat-fishes, on the other hand, deposit eggs that float at the surface some distance from the shore; and the young plaice and soles, when hatched, come inshore and take up their residence close to the bed of the sea.
Photo by W. Saville-Kent, F.Z.S.] [Milford-on-Sea.