23 



Shortly after I saw a shoal of porpoises (a cetacean which 

 loves the mackerel in an epicurean sense) come lumbering 

 up from the south into the sand. When they came across 

 the trail of the mackerel these latter were a good mile 

 off on their way. The porpoises had no sooner got into 

 their back water than they wheeled into their course and 

 set off in full chase. In about three minutes they were 

 in the midst of the mackerel, playing havoc, whilst the 

 unfortunate mackerel were driving forward in one solid 

 line of terror, making the water foam before them as they 

 fled. 



Of the Pilchard I have a different tale to tell. It is a 

 little fish of the " herring " family, generally about ten 

 inches long", and rarely so much as half a pound in weight. 

 It is very local in its habits, rarely occurring in numbers of 

 any importance east of the Start Point, in Devonshire, on 

 the South coast, and Trevose Head, in Cornwall, on the 

 north. It is taken yearly as far east as the estuary of 

 the Exe, and has been taken, and occasionally in large 

 numbers, off Seaton, in Devonshire, at the mouth of the 

 river Axe. Some years since a small shoal was taken off 

 Folkestone.* 



It occurs in very large numbers off the south-west coast 

 of Ireland, but there is no native fishery for it there, and as 

 its season on that coast coincides with its season on ours, 

 our people are too busy at home to look after it. It occurs, 

 of course, off the French coasts as the sardine. And the 

 Spaniards have a mode of curing it which altogether beats 

 our English method, as may be seen by a comparison of our 



* There is also some record of the capture of a shoal at Harwich, 

 and a fish supposed to be the pilchard occurs in Scotland under the 

 name of the garvie herring, but practically its home in England is in 

 Cornwall and mainly in West Cornwall. 



