OUR FISHERIES 65 



The simpler method of seining sand-eels at Teignmouth 

 consists, as already mentioned, in shooting the scan on a 

 sand-bank, and making a greater or smaller catch of the 

 fish. With the pilchards, however, the fish are located first 

 before any attempt is made to encircle them in the sean, 

 and, as the range of vision is very limited at sea-level, the 

 services of look-out men, known as " huers," are enlisted 

 on the cliffs overlooking the bay. These men, who receive 

 about j^3 per month for their assistance, in addition to a small 

 percentage (about one per cent.) of the catch, notify the town 

 of the approach of a shoal of pilchards, and also, by a most 

 complicated system of shouting and signalling with special 

 implements, every movement of the teeming fish. Fortu- 

 nately, the colour-protection of the green pilchard in the 

 green water is not quite so striking in nature as some writers 

 make believe, and the shoals impart a reddish hue to the sea, 

 which betrays their presence to those watching for them. The 

 St. Ives pilchard fishery, which has its fluctuations, its good 

 and its bad years, like most other industries, is of some 

 antiquity, and very stringent laws, endorsed by Act of Parlia- 

 ment and by the approval of the fishermen themselves, are in 

 force for regulating the operations of the boats, the bay being 

 mapped off into six " stems " {i.e. fishing-stations worked in 

 rotation) for the purpose. As has been already mentioned, 

 the Scotch know the sean under the name of " trawl." 



The drift-net is another important method of catching 

 pilchards in the west country, though less characteristic of the 

 locality in past times than of the herring fisheries in Scotch 

 waters and on the east coast, from which it probably reached 

 Cornish seas. The writer has always regarded the drift-net as 

 the most scientific of all, depending for its success on strategy 

 and on a knowledge of certain curious habits of the fish for 

 which it is set rather than on mere chance, like the trammel, 

 mere force, like the trawl, or merely seeing fish and then 

 catching them, like the sean. It has, of course, its limitations, 



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