VIII.—THE SARDINE FISHERIES.* °° 
There will be but few of our readers who do not know the fish called 
“ Sardine,” or at least but few who have never seen a sardine-box. 
Empty sardine-boxes are met everywhere, even among people who have 
never tasted a sardine. These small boxes, made of thin tin, are used 
in many different ways, and people will keep them for various purposes. 
For the benefit of those of our readers who do not know the sardine or 
sardel, we would state that they are a kind of herring which somewhat 
resembles our common sprat, and which in large numbers is caught in 
the Mediterranean and on the west coast of France. Frenchmen first 
commenced to put up these small herring in oil and to export them to 
other countries as a great delicacy, thereby deriving a considerable 
revenue from their sardine fisheries. It may interest our readers to 
learn something respecting these fisheries, and we therefore give the 
following information, principally derived from a French journal. 
The importance of the sardine fisheries will become evident from the 
fact that they employ 25,000 to 30,000 fishermen during seven months 
in the year; the number of boats employed in these fisheries is also 
very. large, as a boat’s crew is composed of 4 men and 1 boy. The prep- 
aration of the sardines requires a similar number of persons. In 1875 
a single fishing village prepared 2,650,000 pounds sardines in oil and 
as many pounds of salt sardines, called in the interior of France fresh 
sardines. 
The fishing-boats are 20 feet long, with square sterns, and sharp 
sheer forward, which makes them fast sailers, but crank. They have 
two masts leaning slightly backward, and two square lugger-sails of 
considerable size, so that the slightest breeze carries them through the 
waves. | 
The nets have no weights below. They are 30 to 45 yards long and 
9 to 12 yards deep, are made of very fine twine, and have such narrow 
meshes that the sardines can get their heads in and be caught by the 
gills. The buoy-line has cork floats, which keep the net near the sur- 
face of the water. Every net has its own peculiar nickname, ‘Tool 
them,” “‘Greedy-guts,” &c., by which names they are invariably known 
among the fishermen. 
In the sardine fisheries the bait is of much greater importance than 
*Sardinfisket in Fiskeri Tidende, No. 11, March 14, 1882.—Translated from the Danish 
by HERMAN JACOBSON. 
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