THE CORNISH PILCHARD FISHERIES. 



173 



Of the shad, though not as commonly known as the herring, there are twenty known 

 species. In the season this fish regularly approaches the mouths of great rivers for 

 the purpose of spawning*. It is found in the spring in the Rhine, Seine, Garonne, Volga, 

 Elbe, and in many of our own rivers. In some Irish rivers the masses of shad taken 

 have been so great that hardly any amount of exertion has been sufficient to land the 

 net. Ifc sometimes attains a very considerable size, weighing from four to six pounds. 

 The shad taken at sea is considered coarser eating than that caught in rivers. 



The sprat has been by some taken for the young of the herring, and the controversy 

 on the subject has at times waxed warm. Some anatomists declare that their peculiarities 

 show no difference but size. It has a serrated belly, which Bertram looks upon as the 

 tuck in the child's frock, a provision for growth. " The slaughter of sprats/' says he, 

 " is as decided a case of killing the 

 goose with the golden eggs as the grilse 

 slaughter carried on in our salmon rivers/' 

 But Figuier reminds that writer that 

 the young herrings are caught without 

 the serrated belly, and that the curer's 

 purchase is regulated by the sprat's rough, 

 and the herring's smooth, belly. Sprats 

 are often so abundant as to be unsaleable, 

 and are then actually used for manure. 



The pilchard visits our coasts at all 

 times, the leading .fisheries being in 

 Cornwall. Wilkie Collins has given us 



a lively and interesting picture of the "look-out" for their approach and capture.* 

 He says : " A stranger in Cornwall, taking his first walk along the cliffs in August, 

 could not advance far without witnessing what would strike him as a very singular and 

 even alarming phenomenon. He would see a man standing on the extreme edge of a 

 precipice just over the sea, gesticulating in a very remarkable manner, with a bush in 

 his hand, waving it to the right and to the left, brandishing it over his head, sweeping 

 it past his feet; in short, acting the part of a maniac of the most dangerous 

 description. It would add considerably to the stranger's surprise if he were told that 

 the insane individual before him was paid for nourishing the bush at the rate of a 

 guinea a week.f And if he advanced a little, so as to obtain a nearer view of the 

 madman, and observed a well-manned boat below turning carefully to the right and left 

 as the bush turned, his mystification would probably be complete, and his ideas as to the 

 sanity of the inhabitants would be expressed with grievous doubt. 



" But a few words of explanation would make him alter his opinion. He would learn 

 that the man was an important agent in the pilchard fishery of Cornwall, that he had 

 just discovered a shoal swimming towards the land, and that the men in the boats were 

 guided by his gesticulations alone in their arrangements for securing the fish on which 



THE PILCHARD (Clupca pilchardus) 



* In his " Rambles beyond Railways." f This watcher also receives a percentage on the "take " of fish. 



