236 THE ST. IVES PILCHARD FISHERY. 



the waters, is a sight of great interest and beauty, and such 

 as would repay any exertion to see." 



The seine or net used in St. Ives Bay for capturing pil- 

 chards is nearly twelve hundred feet long, and nearly sixty 

 feet in depth. More than two hundred and fifty of such 

 nets are kept at St. Ives, each having its own boat to carry 

 it. Every seine or net-boat, when its turn arrives, is attended 

 by one or two tow-boats with stop-nets, and also by a smaller 

 boat called the " follower," used principally for carrying the 

 men to and from the larger boats. When the huers or sen- 

 tinels stationed on the hills perceive a shoal of pilchards, 

 they immediately signal to their respective boats, and by 

 «igns give the necessary directions for their capture. They 

 are enabled to do this by observing on the water a reddish 

 hue, like that of sea- weed (very different from their color 

 out of water), and the denser the shoal of fish, the deeper 

 is this hue. As soon as the seine-boat and tow-boat are 

 within reach of the shoal, they start for the same point in 

 opposite directions, and are rowed rapidly round the fish, 

 while the nets which they carry are being shot or cast into 

 the sea. When the seine and the stop-net meet, they are 

 immediately joined, and form a complete circular wall round 

 the pilchards about eighteen hundred feet in circumference, 

 and reaching from the surface to the bottom, the nets being 

 kept in a vertical position by corks strung on their head- 

 ropes and leads on their foot-ropes. This net-work enclo- 

 sure, with all its contents, is then warped towards the shore 

 into the securest part of the bay, out of the reach of the 

 strong tidal current, and there moored with anchors so 

 placed as to keep it as open or as nearly circular as possi- 

 ble. Within this large net a small one, called the tuck-net, 

 is introduced at low water, so that the fish are raised to the 

 surface, dipped up in baskets into the boats, taken to shore, 

 and carried in barrows to be cured and salted. The St. Ives 

 «eine fishery does not differ materially from that in Mount's 



