200 HISTORY OF SEA-FISHERIES. 



prescribed limits, and were thus abandoned to 

 foreigners. 



The Pilchard fishery , which is carried on upon 

 parts of the Devon and Cornish coasts, is of very 

 great importance. The number of boats engaged 

 in it is about 1000, giving employment to about 

 3500 men at sea, and about 5000 men and 

 women on shore. The pilchards visit our shores 

 in August and September, and again in November 

 or December; they come in large shoals into 

 shallow water. As soon as caught they are salted 

 or pickled, and exported to foreign markets ; 

 chiefly to the Mediterranean. The average exports 

 amounted to 30,000 hogsheads per year. The 

 quantity was much greater formerly, when a bounty 

 of 8s. 6d. per hogshead was paid upon all exported. 

 This bounty has long since ceased, and, as addi- 

 tional reasons for the diminution of the fishery, it 

 is said that Lent is not now so strictly enforced 

 as an ecclesiastical observance as it was formerly 

 in the countries to which the exports are made, 

 and that the heavy duty, equal to 18s. per hogs- 

 head, imposed upon importation into Naples, which 

 has long been the principal market, has checked 

 the consumption. 



