194 DEEr-SEA FISHING. 



is filled three times before the pressing is finished, 

 which is not until after eight or nine days, and then 

 the hogshead of fish sliould be four hundredweiglit 

 gross. The quantity of oil obtained from the pilchards 

 depends on the season, but at least two gallons per 

 hogshead are expected, the early fish — those obtained by 

 the drift-nets — producing the most. It is much used 

 by leather-dressers, and, like other kinds of fish oil, is 

 probably employed for a variety of purposes. The 

 average number of fish packed in a hogshead is about 

 2500 ; and although the pilchard fishery fluctuates a 

 good deal from year to year, the variation depends 

 more on the success or otherwise of the scans than 

 anything else, as they cannot be worked unless the fish 

 come within a certain distance of the land. In some 

 years hardly anything has been done with these nets ; 

 whilst, on the other hand, as many as 5500 hogsheads 

 were once actually saved from the part of a shoal 

 enclosed by a single scan. This catch, we were told at 

 St. Ives, was the largest on record, and far greater than 

 what the fishermen are generally disposed to regard as 

 a very successful haul. 



Pilchard-seaning is carried on more regularly on the 

 southern coast ; but the nets are fewer, and as there is 

 a larger choice of ground, there is not so much occasion 

 for the various regulations which are almost a matter 

 of necessity at St. Ives ; many of them exist, however, 

 as a matter of custom, and are generally approved of. 

 Scans of very different sizes are in use ; some of them 

 equal to the largest at St. Ives, and others so small as 

 to give rise to the complaint that many fish are lost 

 because of their inability to enclose as many as might 

 be taken if one of the larger nets were in possession of 

 the ground. On the other hand, the obstruction the 



