CUEING THE PILCHAED, 183 



Ten thousand hogsheads of pilchards have been known to b6 

 taken in one port in a day's time. The convenience of keeping 

 the shoal in the water is obvious, as the fish need not be 

 withdrawn from it till it is convenient to salt them. The 

 fish are salted in curing-houses, great quantities of them being 

 piled up into huge stacks, alternate layers of salt and fish. 

 During the process of curing a large quantity of useful oil 

 exudes from the heaps. The salting process is called " bulking," 

 and the fish are built up into stacks with great regularity, 

 where they are allowed to remain for four weeks, after which 

 they are washed and freed from the oil, then packed into hogs- 

 heads, and sent to Spain and Italy, to he extensively consumed 

 during Lent, as well as at other fasting times. The hurry and 

 bustle at any of the little Cornwall ports during the manipula- 

 tion of a few shoals of pilchards must be seen, the excitement 

 cannot be very well described. The pilchard is, or rather it 

 ought to be, the Sm-dinia of commerce, but its place is usurped 

 by the sprat, or garvie as we call it in Scotland, and thousands 

 of tin boxes of that fish are annually made up and sold as 

 sardines. I have already alluded to the sprat, so far as its 

 natural history is concerned. It is a fish that is very abimdant 

 in Scotland, especially in the Pirth of Forth, where for many 

 years there has been a good sprat-fishery. We do not now 

 require to go to France for our sardines, as we can eure them 

 at home in the French style. 



Sprats, whether they be young herrings or no, are very 

 plentiful in the winter months, and afford a supply of whole- 

 some food of the fish kind to many who are unable to procure 

 more expensive kinds. When the fishing for garvies (sprats) 

 was stopped a few years ago by order of the Board of White 

 Fisheries, there was quite a sensation in Edinburgh; and an 

 agitation was got up that has resulted in a partial resumption 

 of the fishing, which is of considerable value — about ,£50,000 

 in the Firth of Forth alone. 



Commerce in herring. is entirely different from commerce in 

 any other article, particularly in Scotland. In fact the fishery, 

 as at present conducted, is just another way of gambling. The 

 home " curers" and foreign buyers are the persons who at present 

 keep the herring-fisheiy from stagnating, and the goods (i.e. the 

 fish) are generally aU bought and sold long before they are cap- 

 tured. The way of dealing in herring is pretty much as follows : 

 — lOwners of boats are engaged to fish by curers, the bargains 



