Page:VCH Cornwall 1.djvu/343

 FISHES In consequence of the geographical features of Cornwall, the penin- sula being surrounded on three sides by the sea, and having a great extent of coast-line in proportion to its terrestrial area, marine fishes occupy a large and important place in its natural history, and play an important part in its economics. In numbers of individuals its waters are scarcely as productive as those of the North Sea, but in number and diversity of species they are surpassed by few if any other parts of the British or Irish coasts. Projecting in a south-westerly direction into the Atlantic Ocean, the peninsula extends into the area of distribution of several southern species, for example the pilchard, which are rare or wanting in other parts of Britain ; and wanderers or visitors of other southern or oceanic species, more frequently reach the coasts of Cornwall than other coasts of the British Isles. On the other hand, species of northern distribution, as for example the haddock (Gadus ceglefinus) and the viviparous blenny (Zoarces vivifiarus), are rare or absent from Cornish waters. Until lately the county has been fortunate in the number and enthusiasm of its local ichthyologists. In the earlier half of last century Dr. Jonathan Couch at Polperro studied the local fishes with unremitting attention, and his observations, first published in occasional papers, are collected for the most part in his complete work on the Fis&es of the British Islands (18625). ^ e a ^ so published special details on Cornish fishes in the Cornish Fauna in 1838, of which a second edition, with the fishes revised by T. Cornish, was published in 1878. R. Couch and T. Cornish made observations at Penzance, which were recorded in the Zoologist. Cocks noted remarkable captures at Fal- mouth. During a long lifetime at Mevagissey the late Matthias Dunn studied the natural history of marine fishes with remarkable success, and added to the fish-lore of the county by the information and specimens which he supplied to J. Couch, to Dr. Francis Day, and in his last years to the Plymouth Laboratory, even more than by his own communications to the scientific societies of the county and his other publications. Among marine fishes the pilchard is the most characteristic fish of Cornwall : it occurs in great abundance off the coasts of this county, and extends to the south coast of Devon, but is absent or extremely scarce on all the other coasts of Great Britain. The pilchard is the same species of fish which is called the sardine in France. Its habitat extends from Corn- wall and the south coast of Ireland to the neighbourhood of Madeira and throughout the Mediterranean. In the waters of the Atlantic however 291