20 



has invented a seine of which a model is in the middle of 

 our Cornwall stall (it is the one which has the weight 

 attached to it), which he says can be worked at deep sea 

 shoals of fish ; and curiously enough, a model of a second 

 seine on the same principle, but differing a little in detail, is 

 exhibited on the same stall by Mr. Moses Dunn, of Fowey, 

 and a third by Mr. Barren of Mevagissey. Practical men 

 saw these models, both before they came here and since, 

 and pronounced them very pretty little toys, which might 

 succeed in a fish pond, but utterly unfit for use at sea. 

 Now a full seine costs a large sum of money, and no 

 hard-headed capitalist is likely to lay it out on a specu- 

 lation which the practical men tell him must fail. Well, the 

 nets come here, and to them came an American gentleman 

 and he said, " You have the precise principle on which we 

 are working deep-sea seines in America, and they succeed 

 admirably." 



There is another point which I must not overlook. There 

 is an idea of great antiquity, and very generally entertained, 

 that mackerel must always be fresh to be good. It is 

 perfectly true that mackerel is in its perfection when cooked 

 as soon as captured, but if that cannot be done it is like most 

 other fish, none the worse for a little keeping. And it is for 

 this reason, and because ice takes the flavour out of the fish, 

 that I consider dry packing (ie., packing fish-upon-fish 

 without ice) preferable to packing in ice; it injures the 

 flavour less. But there is another view to be taken. This 

 fish is eminently amenable to the action of antiseptics. 

 The smallness and fineness of its scale causes an antiseptic 

 bath to act upon its skin and gilled surfaces with marked 

 effect. I once received two of the large mackerel of which 

 I have spoken, which had been caught off the Scilly Isles 

 on a Monday night in the month of June (I believe, at all 



