PILCHARD. 93 



very greatly after the month of September. The oil obtained 

 from the Pilchard has been found to contain a larger amount 

 of greasy matter than that from any other kind of fish; and is 

 of much value in some sorts of mechanical employments. This 

 practice of obtaining the oil by means of simple pressure is 

 referred to by the county historian Carew, as being in his day 

 a comparatively modern invention; and the common belief is 

 that at a remote date the fish intended for exportation were 

 preserved by being smoked; of which the name of fumado, by 

 which they are now known, is a proof, for this word is only 

 applied to Pilchards that are sent to a foreign market. The 

 fish prepared for use at home are deprived of their heads and 

 entrails, and thus kept in salt or brine; in which condition 

 they form the winter stock of almost every family in the middle 

 and lower condition of life. 



In a long series of years the average quantity of fumadoes 

 sent abroad yearly may be thirty thousand hogsheads; but on 

 some rare occasions it has much exceeded this, and has amounted 

 to sixty thousand; but on the other hand, in the years 1821 

 and 1822, the quantity respectively was little above two thou- 

 sand and five thousand hogsheads. It is the drift-net fishery 

 which for the most part supplies the consumers of Pilchards in 

 our own country; and the amount caught by them may perhaps 

 be equal to what is taken in seans. In the latter the largest 

 amount caught at one time has amounted to three thousand five 

 hundred hogsheads; which was at St. Ives in the month of 

 November; but at the same place ten thousand hogsheads have 

 been enclosed in the seans in one day, although not immediately 

 brought to land. As an hogshead contains from two thousand 

 five hundred of these fishes, to perhaps three thousand, it thus 

 happens that the enormous multitude of thirty millions of living 

 creatures have been secured at once from the ocean for human 

 sustenance. From thirty to forty thousand is regarded as a 

 favourable capture by drift-nets, of not very frequent occurrence; 

 but the more frequent capture of a smaller number affords a 

 sufficient remuneration to the fishermen. 



This lengthened notice of a popular and important fishery 

 might have been still more extended; but for other particulars 

 we refer to several communications that are to be found in the 

 Reports of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society, and the 



