THE HERRING- 



315 



of manure. This fishery employs not only 

 great numbers of men at sea, training them 

 to naval affairs, but also numbers of women 

 and children at land, in salting and curing 



by its scales, which are nearly half as large again as those 

 of a herring of the same size. It is found, during the 

 months of August and September, in great shoals, or 

 schools, as they are called by the fishermen, on the south- 

 west coast of England, and afford employment, for a 

 time, to a great number ot boats and men, belonging to 

 the fishing-towns of Cornwall. This fish is also met with 

 off the French coast, and other parts of Europe, but its 

 chief place of resort, appears to be the coasts of Cornwall 

 and Devon. The pilchard is rarely met with in the 

 London markets, but there is a fish, found sparingly 

 among the sprats, which has obtained its name, which 

 in reality, is merely a small, and we believe, undescribed 

 species of herring. The value of this fishery was well 

 known as long back as the reign of Elizabeth, when an 

 act of parliament, containing the following clause, was 

 passed : " No stranger should transport beyond seas, 

 any pilcherd or other fish in cask, vnlesse hee did bring 

 into the realme for every sixe tunnes, two hundred of 

 clap boord fit to make cask, and so rateably, vpon payne 

 of forfeiting the said pilcherd or fish." The reason the 

 stranger was obliged to bring in a certain quantity of 

 wood, appears to have arisen irom the circumstance of 

 Cornwall being nearly without timber of any kind. 



There are several signs by which the presence of a 

 shoal of pilchards may be known ; the luminous appear- 

 ance of the sea at night, the number of birds of prey which 

 accompany it, and, when seen from a moderate distance, 

 the appearance of the water, which seems for miles 

 around to be, as it were, boiling or bubbling. 



When the annual visit of the pilchards is expected, to 

 prevent their passing unnoticed, men are continually 

 on the alert, watching from all the elevated spots on the 

 coast, from which stations they are also able by signs to 

 direct the operations of their friends at sea, so that they 

 may be enabled to enclose as many of the fish as possible. 

 The largest net which is employed is called a scan, and 

 is upwards of sixty fathoms (three hundred and sixty feet,) 

 in length, and thirty-six feet in depth; the lower part of 

 this net is kept down by means of leaden weights, while 

 the upper floats on the surface, being rigged out with a 

 number of corks; if one of these nets is found to be in- 

 sufficient for the purpose of surrounding the shoal, a 

 second, or even a third, is attached to it. The sean now 

 forms a kind of wall, within which the fish are enclosed, 

 and the object of the fishermen is to bring this net as 

 near as possible to the shore, so that at low water, the 

 fish shall have all means of escape cut off, except by 

 overleaping the net. As soon as the tide is out, a net 

 called a truck-net, which differs from the sean in being 

 smaller, and without leads, is cast among the pilchards, 

 and, cords being attached to its four corners, it is hauled 

 on shore, along with as many fish as it may happen to 

 contain : and this is repeated until the whole of them 

 are taken or have made their escape. 



While these means are employed for the capture of the 

 larger quantity, other boats are engaged in taking the 

 scattered parts of the shoal by means of driving-nets. 

 The boats and nets of the seaners being very expensive, 

 are generally provided by some capitalist or company of 

 proprietors, and the men during the season are paid a 

 small weekly sum, and also a certain portion of the cap- 

 tured fish. As soon as they are brought on shore, they 

 are carried off in baskets to the curing-house, where they 

 are carefully laid in rows one above the other, with al- 

 ternate layers of salt, till a pile of considerable height is 

 formed. They are said now to be in bulk, and are al- 

 lowed to remain in this state from a fortnight to five 

 weeks. During this time a quantity of brin'e and oil 



the fish ; in making boats, nets, ropes, and 

 casks, for the purposes of taking or fitting them 

 for sale. The poor are fed with the superfluity 

 of the capture ; the land is manured with the 



has drained from them, which runs off through gutters 

 in the floor and is carefully collected ; they are next 

 thrown into a large wooden trough which contains a false 

 bottom, formed of battens or long strips of wood, and are 

 freed from the salt and impurities that are attached to 

 them; they are now very carefully and neatly packed in 

 hogsheads, arranged in circles, one within the other, the 

 heads all pointing inwards. 



As soon as the hogshead is full, a circular board is 

 placed on the top of the fish, and they are pressed very 

 closely together by the application of heavy weights, the 

 weights being large blocks of graniter ^in's pressure re- 

 duces the bulk of the fish by nearly one third, arid the 

 hogshead has to be filled up three times before it is con- 

 sidered well packed. A quantity of pure oil runs off, 

 during this part of the process, through a small hole in 

 the bottom of the cask. It is calculated, that a hogshead 

 of pilchards which weigh about four hundred weight and 

 a quarter, will yield from three to four gallons of oil, 

 worth about 17 a tun, or rather better than 1*. 4d. a 

 gallon. 



The oil is used in the manufacture of cart-grease, and 

 for many other purposes to which the more common kind 

 of whale-oil, called train-oil, is applied. Attempts have 

 been made to purify this oil, so as to render it serviceable 

 to the currier, but hitherto without success, on account 

 of the quantity of salt and glutinous matter which it 

 contains. The pilchards, when thus packed, are exported 

 chiefly to the West Indies, for the use of the slave-popu- 

 lation, and to different parts of the Mediterranean and 

 are likewise salted and dried in great quantities for 

 winter-provision, by the poorer classes in Cornwall and 

 Devon. 



The myriads of fish that a shoal of pilchards contains, 

 are almost beyond the power of calculation ; some of the 

 shoals will form almost solid masses, covering a surface 

 frequently of six square miles, and extending in depth 

 upwards of one hundred feet. In successful times, as 

 many as from five to seven hundred hogsheads have been 

 taken from one shoal. The annual value of the fish that 

 are exported is from fifty to sixty thousand pounds. 



The appearance of a shoal of pilchards on a dark night, 

 when enclosed by the nets, is splendid beyond descrip- 

 tion : struggling and leaping in every direction, to escape 

 from their confinement, or to avoid the attacks of their 

 numerous enemies (particularly the dog-fish,) who are 

 imprisoned along with their victims, they appear like so 

 many flakes of fire, and the sea itself seems like a lake 

 of liquid flame. 



The pilchard fisheries, according to evidence laid be- 

 fore a committee of the house of commons, appear, of 

 late yea<s, to have decreased considerably. Several causes 

 have tended to produce this state of the fishery; among 

 others, the removal of a bounty of 8*. Gd. a hogshead, 

 which had been paid to the exporters till within these five 

 or six years, and the increase of duty at present is as 

 much as 18*. 2d. a hogshead, imposed by the govern- 

 ment at Naples, to which place large quantities were 

 exported. 



The fishery is also injured by the illegal practice of 

 employing drift and other nets too near the shore, 

 by which means the shoals are dispersed as they ap- 

 proach. It is likely, however, that the statute of the 

 14th of Charles II. will soon be more' strictly enforced. 

 This Act imposes a fine upon all persons who " shall 

 in any year, from the first of June till the last day of 

 November, presume to take fish in the high sea, or in 

 any bay, port, creek, or coast, of or belonging to 

 Cornwall and Devon, with any drift-net, trammel, or 



