600 THE OCEAN WORLD. 



"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 apparently 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 flourishing the bush at the rate of a guinea a 



Fig. 384. The Pilchard (Clupea pilchardus). 



week. 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 so many depend for a livelihood." 



Where the pilchards come from, and whither they go, seems alike 

 unknown. All that is certain is, that they are met with in shoals 

 swimming past the Scilly Islands as early as July. In August the 

 inshore fishing begins, and they appear on various parts of the coast 



