THETR ROOND OF EIFE-AND LABOUR. 53 
the importance of the bait supply. The labour to all 
concerned in using such a vast number of mussels must 
have been enormous. 
The collecting of whelks, to serve as bait for the cod- 
fishers and other uses, is a regular trade on some parts of 
the English coast, in which a considerable number of small 
vessels are constantly employed. Each of the cod-smacks 
takes in a large supply as they start on their fishing tour ; 
during the season of long-line fishing about forty wash of 
these buckies is required ; a wash, it should be explained, 
is a measure which contains twenty-one quarts of whelks. 
These shell-fish are preserved alive in the well of the cod- 
smack, being kept in bags made of netting till required ; they 
make capital bait, as when once properly affixed on the 
hooks they are ill to remove. The whelks are caught in 
various ways, and give employment to a large number of 
industrious persons, whose business it is to procure them ; 
indeed, so actively is the taking of these animals engaged 
in, that the supplies of a district soon begin to fall off, so 
that new fishing grounds have to be sought for every now 
and then; in the sea lochs of the west of Scotland there 
are immense numbers of shell-fish, which might either be 
brought to the food market or be collected for bait. 
The foregoing facts and figures, it is hoped by the writer, 
will enable all who peruse them to form an idea of the in- 
cessant work which is involved in the capture of fish. Besides 
the fishing industries which have been already referred to, 
as affording fields of labour more or less remunerative to 
the working fishermen, there are others, such as the mack- 
erel fishery, which might also be placed in evidence, but 
drifting and seining, no matter what the fish sought for may 
be, is ever the same, and it would only be treading a beaten 
path to do more than say that. Happily enough the 
