134 BRITISH FISH AND nSHERIES. 



mon on the coasts of France and Spain, but 

 seldom appears there in such countless shoals 

 as it does along those of Cornwall and Devon- 

 shire, where, as we have said, an extensive 

 fishery is carried on. This fish seldom departs 

 far from the coast ; but in July it assembles 

 in astonishing multitudes, when the autumn 

 fishery commences, the sean and the drift-net 

 being chiefly used. 



Pilchards, often in large shoals, visit different 

 parts of the coast of Ireland, and there is a 

 regularly conducted fishery in Bantry Bay. 



The following extract will serve to show the 

 enormous quantity of these fishes which are 

 sometimes taken : — " A fisherman, now alive, 

 was present once at the taking of two thousand 

 two hundred hogsheads of pilchards in one 

 sean. An instance has been known where ten 

 thousand hogsheads have been taken on shore 

 in one port in a single day ; thus providing the 

 enormous multitude of twenty-five millions of 

 living creatures, draivn at once from the ocean 

 for human sustenance." The number of fish 

 in each hogshead is two thousand five hundred. 

 " The outfit of a sean amoiints to about £800; 

 a string of drift-nets will cost about £6 ; the 

 net and the boat from £100 to £150. In 

 1827, the cost of seans and boats used in this 



