Although the common herring of our northern seas is beyond all doubt the most important of the tribe, yet there is no sea, no coast, where other species of the same family are not a source of abundance to man, and of astonishment by their vast numbers. Thus the enormous shoals of Pilchards appearing along our south-western coasts are not less valuable to the fishermen of Devon and Cornwall than the common herring to those of the North Sea. The older naturalists considered the pilchard, like the herring, as a visitor from a distant region, and they assigned to it also the same place of resort as that fish, with which indeed the pilchard has been sometimes confounded. To this it will be a sufficient reply, that the pilchard is never seen in the Northern Ocean. They frequent the French coasts, and are seen on those of Spain, but on neither in considerable numbers or with much regularity; so that few fishes confine themselves within such narrow bounds. On the coast of Cornwall they are found throughout all the seasons of the year, and even there their habits vary in the different months. In January they keep near the bottom, and are chiefly hauled up in the stomachs of ravenous fishes; in March they sometimes assemble in _schulls_, but this union is only partial and not permanent and only becomes so in July; when they regularly and permanently congregate so as to invite the fisherman's pursuit. The season and situation for spawning, and the choice of food, are the chief reasons which influence the motions of the great bodies of these fish; and it is probable that a thorough knowledge of these particulars would explain all the variations which have been noticed in the doings of the pilchard, in the numerous unsuccessful seasons of the fishery.
They feed with voracity on small crustaceous animals, and Mr. Yarrell frequently found their stomachs crammed with thousands of a minute species of shrimp, not larger than a flea. It is probably when they are in search of something like this, that fishermen report they have seen them lying in myriads quietly at the bottom, examining with their mouths the sand and small stones in shallow water. The abundance of this food must be enormous, to satisfy such a host.