' 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 of fish, 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. 
“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 (C/upea 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 the 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 (ZAygraulis 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. 
