PILCHARD, Clupect pilehardus, or Alansa pilchardus, an important fish of the family clupeidee (q.v.), referred by some naturalists to the same genus with the herring (dupea), and by others to the same genus with the shad (clause). The pilchard is nearly equal in size to the herring. hut rather thicker, and the lines of the back and belly are straighter; the scales arc also larger and fewer; and the dorsal fin is rather further forward.' The mouth is small, and in the adult fish destitute of teeth; the under jaw longer than the upper. The upper part of the body is bluish-green; the sides and belly silvery-white; the cheeks and gill-covers tinged with golden yellow, and marked with radiating strire; the dorsal fin and tail dusky. The pilchard is an inhabitant of more southern seas than the herring, being nowhere plentiful on the British coasts, except in the extreme south, and chiefly on the coasts of Devonshire and Cornwall; whilst it occurs on many parts of the Atlantic coasts of France and Spain, and on the coasts of Portugal, and is found is the Mediterranean sea. Like the herring, it was formerly supposed to be a migratory tish, annually visiting the coasts of England and other countries; but, us in the case of the herring, this opinion has now been relinquished; and the shoals of .pilelmols which are seen on the coasts are believed merely to issue from deeper waters near ut hand, for the purpose of spawning. The spawning season of the pilchard begins calmly in summer; hut on the coasts of Devonshire and Cornwall, the principal is in August and September. Pilchards are caught either with drift-nets or seine-nets, but principally with seine-nets. By means of one or more seine, each 300 ft. long and 36 ft. deep, a shoal is iuclosed; the bottom of the net is then drawn together by a peculiar contrivance. and
the pilchards are taken out at low water by small bag-nets. Prodigious numbers are sometimes inclosed fur a single seine. Twenty-four millions and a half are said to have been taken at once from a single shoal, which, however, may have been spsead over sev eral sq. miles. The approach of a shoal of pilchards is known by the rippling of the water, Ind the sea-birds hovering above, and is often watched for and marked from the shore. In some years the quantity taken in the pilchard fishery on the English coast is enormous, and the capital invested in it in Devonshire and Cornwall is probably not much under £1,000,000. The English pilchard fishery is regulated by several acts of parliament, the first of which are of the days of Elizabeth. Great quantities of pilchards are annually exported to the West Indies and elsewhere. Those intended for exportation are pickled. and packed in barrels by means of great pressure, by which oil is expressed to the amount of three or four gallons from a hogshead of fish. The oil, with the blood and pickle with which it is mingled, is generally used for manure. A favorite Devon shire dish is it pie made of pilchards, with their heads protruding from the crust. It is now admitted that the pilchard and the sardine are identical, and a Cornish sardine company has been started for preparing pilchards, like sardines, in oil. It is said that the Cornish sardines cannot be distinguished from those imported from France.—A great number of boats are employe:] in the pilchard fishery in and near the estuary of the Tagus.—The pilchard is known in Scotland as the gypsy herring.