280 SEA FISHERIES 



their annual value being about ^1,920,000 ; but at 

 present they produce over ^2,400,000. This sum is 

 exclusive of the yield of the whale fishery and the 

 sales of by-products, which amount to some 200,000 

 or .240,000. 



The northern nations hold the supremacy in the matter 

 of fisheries ; but the movement seems to be creeping 

 southwards. Since 1904 a score of trawlers have estab- 

 lished thehiselves at La Corogne, where they engage 

 in the hake fishery. There is talk of establishing fisheries 

 at Barcelona, together with a stock-fish and a fish-manure 

 factory. The little harbour of Marin shelters forty 

 cordiers, or line-fishers, which take gilt-heads, gurnard, 

 and conger. With Vigo, Marin is the centre of the 

 sardine fishery. The Spaniards, like the French Basques, 

 catch sardines with the seine. Vigo exports more than 

 4,000 tons of sardines in oil. There are 137 factories 

 in Vigo ; and ten prepared sardines are worth rather 

 less than three-tenths of a penny that is, less than 

 the box that holds them and the oil that preserves them. 

 The principal Portuguese sardine port, Setubal, fishes 

 with a kind of seine or " circle " * or with madragues ; 

 and the yield of 13 "circles" supplies 37 factories. 

 Lisbon sends sailing vessels to Newfoundland. From 

 the mouth of the Minho to Cap Sines the crayfish 

 or spiny lobster abounds. This stretch of coast, together 

 with the neighbourhood of Sorlingues and the banks 

 of Cape Blanco, are a fishing-ground often frequented 

 by French fishermen. The fishermen of southern Italy 

 engage in the tunny fishery, using the madraguc. Those 

 of the Adriatic use the net, line, and the hand-seine, 



1 The Portuguese "circle" is 530 yards long and 36 yards in 

 depth ; the mesh is '6 of an inch. A " circle " will sometimes take 

 2 million sardine in a single catch. The net costs about 1,000. 



