27 



" Long life to the Pope, and may our streets run with 

 blood." 



The fish itself resembles a small silvery herring having 

 large scales. The people who catch it are much the same 

 as those who fish for mackerel, but the fishery has a 

 separate capital invested in it, the boats and nets used 

 being peculiar to it. 



It is captured in much the same way as the mackerel is. 

 In the night in drift nets ; in the day time in seines. 

 Originally pilchard seining and mackerel seining were 

 conducted in much the same way, but the decline of 

 mackerel seining has now-a-days caused them to differ. 



The lookout of a mackerel seine is mostly kept on board 

 the boat itself, and the seine net is hauled bodily on board 

 with the fish in it, but in pilchard seining the lookout is kept 

 from some hill where the huer or man stationed to watch 

 for the shoals of fish can be seen from the boat, standing 

 clear out against the sky. He thus gets a much wider out- 

 look than can be had from the boat. He holds in each 

 hand a bush, and when he sights a shoal of fish he informs 

 the boat of its whereabouts by preconcerted signals made 

 with these bushes. The seine boat moves in the direction 

 indicated, and if it reaches the shoal in time it shoots its 

 net. You must consider of this net when shot, as a round 

 room in the water without a floor or ceiling, and if the shot 

 is successful it contains the pilchards. At the next low 

 water time a net, called a tuck net, and which I will liken to 

 a perforated pocket handkerchief, is let down from large 

 boats stationed at one side of the room of water, the tuck- 

 net being inside the seine, and it is drawn up by means of 

 ropes hauled in on board large boats stationed for the 

 purpose at the other side so as to scoop up the fish in 

 the seine. As the ropes come home the boats close in 



