FISHES. 603 



' Hooray ! hooray ! Yoy hoy, hoy ! Pull away, boys ! Up she 

 comes ! Here they are !' The water boils and eddies ; the 'tuck'- 

 net rises to the surface ; one teeming, convulsed mass of shining, 

 glancing, silvery scales ; one compact mass of thousands offish, each 

 one of which is madly striving to escape, appears in an instant. 

 Boats as large as barges now pull up, in hot haste, all round the nets, 

 baskets are produced by dozens, the fish are dipped up in them, and 

 shot out, like coals out of a sack, into the boats. Presently the men 

 are ankle-deep in pilchards ; they jump upon the benches, and work 

 on till the boats can hold no more. They are almost gunwale under 

 before they leave for the shore." 



In the process of curing, the scene becomes doubly picturesque, 

 but this is shore-work, with which our space forbids us to deal. 



11 Some idea of the almost incalculable multitude of pilchards 

 caught on the Cornish shores," says Mr. Collins, " may be gathered 

 from the following data : At the small fishing cove of Trereen 600 

 hogsheads " were taken in little more than a week, during August, 

 1850. Allowing 2,400 fish only to each hogshead (3,000 would 

 be the highest calculation), we have a result of 1,000,440 

 pilchards caught by the inhabitants of one little village alone, 

 on the Cornish coast, at the commencement of the season's 

 fishing." 



The sardine of commerce (Clupea sardina) is sometimes taken in 

 the Channel, on the coasts of Brittany and Cornwall, but is very 

 common indeed in the Mediterranean, and on the coast of Sardinia, 

 whence its commercial name. In Brittany floating nets are employed 

 for its capture. The fishing is conducted in boats, each carrying five 

 men ; hundreds of these boats may sometimes be seen engaged at the 

 same time three or four leagues from tlie coast, the nets being only 

 drawn when they are fully charged, when the fish are arranged bed 

 upon bed in osier baskets, each boat returning habitually to port 

 when it has secured 25,000 fishes. The fishery extends over five or 

 six months, the produce being about 600,000,000 of sardines. 



The Anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus] is chiefly taken in the 

 Mediterranean, and is much sought after for its delicate flavour when 

 salted and cured. It is a small, slender fish, about four to four and 

 a half inches in length ; head pointed, mouth very wide, gill-open- 

 ings large, abdomen smooth ; when living it is greenish on the back, 

 silvery beneath ; after death it changes to a bluish black. The 

 fishery which gives the most abundant results takes place on the 

 shores of the Mediterranean, principally on the coast of Sicily, the 

 isles of Elba, Corsica, Antibes, Frejus, St. Tropez, and Cannes. 



