2 
WIMBLEDON—1884. 
| Ps English riflemen haye just completed their fortnight’s 
work at the old shooting common, and from the latest 
mails, which bring us the story of the camp up to the middle 
of the meeting, we judge that the twenty-fifth annual gath- 
ering has been a very successful one. 
It is a place of continual change, and with a solid substra- 
tum of very cautious conservatism the council have with 
each recurring meeting introduced changes enough to pro- 
voke discussion and set the scribblers busy with protest and 
‘comment, ‘This year a curious ruling as to the standing of 
a yolunteer puts the council in the position of disqualifying 
a member of a volunteer organization as not being a volun- 
teer, even when his name appears in good standing on the 
roster. The “old uns” are’ indignantly aroused over the 
matter, and it is not unlikely that some modification of the 
rule will be made. 
One of the most marked features of the present meeting is 
the concession on the part. of the council that the Snider rifle 
is not a fit weapon of precision at this time. It has been 
pushed aside by a better arm, and this particular better arm 
is the Martini-Henry, which is now permitted in all military 
matches. Itis not unlikely that the Snider, which is the 
recognized arm of the volunteer force, may be called in, and 
the better Martini-Henry used in its stead, a change which 
only paves the way toa later change when the rifle which 
is now being sought for by the regulars shall have proven 
its superiority to the present Martini-Henry. The permis- 
sion to use the Martini in place of the Snider gives universal 
Satisfaction, for besides saving the lugging of two weapons 
to Wimbledon there is an assurance of better scores under 
worse weather conditions than could possibly be made with 
. the large-bored Snider. 
The marking has undergone a modification in the way of 
simplification, and there is a constant approach to that com- 
ing perfect target which shall be selimarking, where the 
services of a man in the pit shall be dispensed with and the 
agency of electricity come in to tell the tale of each shot, 
promptly and accurately. The targets at Wimbledon for 
seyeral years past have been made of canvas, with a dummy 
target which was pushed up above the parapet when a shot 
was made, and which carried with it a marking disk placed 
approximately over the spot hit and signifying the value of 
the shot. Then upon the raising of the real target a small 
patch is seen inserted in the shot hole, which, to the marks- 
man with a glass, enables an exact record of the shot to be 
made. The new scheme does away with the dummy target 
as showing the place of the shot, The value only is given 
for the regular record keeper, while the small shot hole or 
Bland ‘patch is retained as a guide to the man shooting, 
The prize list, as usual, is a tempting one, and consider- 
able care has been exercised in its make-up. There are yal- 
uable aggregate prizes which are not oft to be won by a 
fluke, and while class competitions are provided in plenty 
there are an abundance.of all-comers matches, both for mili- 
tary and sporting rifles, 
The range itself has its old arrangements, a plenty of reg- 
ulars to assist in the butts and at general work, while the 
Canadians are at their old place with an Indian team from 
the service in that far away colony, There are changes in 
the personnel of the staff, Sir Henry Wilmot replacing Lord 
Brownlow as Chief of the Executive. 
The first week of the meeting was not a yery satisfactory 
one in a shooting way, for the wind was unruly and the 
weather generally mixed, The shooting went off without 
mishap, and while big scores were not the rule, the figures 
and the firmanent taken together, showed good shooting 
skill. .A tour of the camp by a military man would suggest 
many very good things, while the stay of a fortnight would 
enable a shooting man to pick up.a thousand and one 
wrinkles about rifles and score gathering, 
An Unknuyp Counsneinor.—Two Vermont ‘Canucks, 
arrested for seining and conyicted of the crime, are now 
pining in the Addison county jail, They were egged on by 
prominent lawyer of the county, who assured them that 
they might net all the fish they wanted to and he would see 
them safely out of it. But instead of that he has only seen 
them in. A correspondent asks what we think of such a 
man, It would no doubt be a good thing if the counsel 
were keeping his client’: company in Addison county jail. 
But perbaps the Canucks will have something to say to the 
legal luminary when they get out; so his punishment may 
be at hand. 
CALIFORNIA Durr are killed by the skin-hunters at an 
alarming rate. Mr, N. £. White, of the Sacramento Sunday 
Capital, relates that within one week after the opening of 
the present deer season in that State he saw in San Francisco 
a truck-load of 450 well-dried deer skins from Michigan 
Bluffs, in Placer county. The skins were of deer which had 
been slaughtered by Indians, employed by hide dealers, in 
the spring. California sportsmen through their State Associa- 
tion are doing what they can to correct these shameful 
abuses, but it is plain that they need more help from the 
State, 
Uncir Lisua’s Saor,—In response to several inquiries 
we reply that we hope to hear further from Uncle Lisha’s 
Shop, perhaps in the fall, when the crops have all been 
gathered, and the author finds leisure to continue his 
sketches, 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Che Sportsman Canrist. 
WITH THE PILCHARD FISHERS. 
what the pilchard really is. 
name. 
mak-r-rel,” 
indented coast. 
houses, wherein the rude forefathers of the hamlet dwell, 
but in tarry sheds for fish drying and a fleet of big-beamed 
pilchard boats drawn upon the beach their pride is centered, 
and the quality of the village proclaimed. Many of such 
villages, standing in amphibious contentment with ‘‘one foot 
in the sea and one on the land, to one thing (¢. ¢. pilchards) 
constant ever,” are perfect little gems for the study of an 
artist, and not a few of them have lent subjects for canvases 
in the Academy and Salon. Many a quiet nook is there 
along this coast which would laugh to scorn the fairness of 
their Normandy and Brittany rivals over the sea, and with 
their neat little white houses, thatched or roofed with red 
tiles which time and moss soon clad in somber tints, their 
nets festooning the winding’ streets, their tarry sheds and 
painted boats, aud the many flowers which bloom in the 
mild climate of Cornwall, these fisher hamlets surrounded 
by some of the finest scenery in England are rich beyond 
comparison in coloring. 
I am looking out now on just such a Village as this that I 
have described, lying half hidden in the blue hollow of a 
landlocked inlet, and flanked by rugged precipices which 
shut out from it all the world save the sea in front. Down 
to it leads from the heights above'a bridle-path, fraught with 
grave danger to the inexperienced, and a sight to haye filled 
with elation the heart of any one being beneficiany expect- 
ant under the insurance policy on the descender’s life. In 
parts it is so steep, and so eccentric in its sudden twists and 
turns, that to walk along it like a god of old story come 
down from the home of his rest, were impossible; you must 
content yourself with walking like a muchly bewildered 
and nervous mortal coming down to homes, which, if you 
eycr reach in safety, you would thank your happy stars. It 
was here that I have just assisted for the first time at the 
catching of a school of pilchards; and it is with great delight 
that I have welcomed the experience of a new phase of the 
English fisheries, after awaiting it for many days. I haye 
been staying in the neighborhood, and have madeéit my daily 
habit to wend down the narrow pathway to the village, at 
much risk to my neck and everything but my determination 
to witness some pilchard fishing, The village has been full 
of charm for me, and its life so simple and natural, that I 
have willingly passed the majority of my time among its 
scenes, chatting with the queer old fishing folk, as they 
mended their nets, painted their boats, gazed furtively at the 
signs of the weather, or philosophically smoked while they 
descanted on their views of things in general; and many 
strange ‘‘yarns” have they had to tell me in return for tales 
of the outer world, and in their company much ozone have 
I absorbed internally and much tar externally. 
But the day of rejoicing came at last. Some inspiration 
had led me to seek my quiet haunt.earlier than usual, and 
when I reached the beach its wandering spirits in muchly 
patched nethers and red ochre colored jerseys had hardly 
got wellinto the prefatory pipes of the morning. Some 
good-natured chaif about wanting to wake the sleepy 
pilchards up and tell ‘em that London was bigger than all 
the towns of Cornwall put together had to be met in the en- 
counter, and anxious inquiries as to whether I had walked 
down the ‘“‘devil’s slide” (as that fearsome path was aptly 
called) in a fit of somnambulism, had to be denied, and my 
mind sorely exerted for so early an hour in concocting 
repartee. But for all this it was lucky I was up betimes or [ 
should have lost my pilchard experiences of the day. We 
had barely got off our salutations, and I had received my 
usual answer in reference to the state of the weather, ‘Weel, 
its muggy-like atowards the hill, but there don’t look to be 
no wind in the sky,” when the faint echo of a shout from 
the crag above us caused us all to look up, Sure enough 
there on the cliff top, where a watchman was stationed to 
warn his comrades below when he should sight pilchers 
(whose location he could easily descry by the dark patch 
which the school makes upon the water), was the tiny figure 
of a man gesticulating wildly with the branch of a tree which 
he pointed seaward. No need for him to continue at his 
maniac dance long, for the chorus of hallooing which 
ascended to his olympian heights was a brave albeit discord- 
ant acknowledgment of the long hoped for signal, and once 
this babel of welcome had been given there was no further 
attention paid to him for the present. 
In a couple of minutes all the village had turned out, agos 
with excitement and expectation—for with pilchards as with 
hares the adage holds good that you must first catch, then deal 
with them as you will, And now the village, which had hereto- 
fore been so quiet and peaceful, developed the most maryvel- 
lous latent energy. Hurry and bustle were everywhere, and 
aA SBOE GE pilchard fishing has been so time-honored 
an industry in the southwest of England and along the 
opposite French coasts, and so much has been written and 
said on the subject, it would still appear to be a moot point 
Some advoeate his claim to be 
classed as a distinct species of fish, while others, and they 
are many, maintain that he is merely the juvenile represen- 
tative of some denizen of the deep already dubbed with a 
The majority, perhaps, lean toward this latter 
opinion, and it seems to be generally considered that the pil- 
chard, as a pilchard, is a delusion and 2 snare, and that 
when he grows up he will be recognized as a mackerel, His 
title of pilchard is, in fact, a superfluity from which the 
owner will seck to rise to loftier things, as the pickerel which 
devours his brother, hoping thereby to attain the dignity of 
being a pike. Does not the all-mentioning Shakespeare throw 
his quill, like the Goth’s sword, into the disputed scales 
when he says: ‘‘A husband is as like to a fool ag a mack- 
erel is to a pilchard—the husband’s the bigger’? Certainly 
the general appearance of the pilcher would justif y his own 
portion of the simile, and it may well happen that in his 
maturity and the fulness of eyents, he may come to be 
hawked about the east end of London on the head of an 
itinerant mortal of the Bill Sykes type, yelling, ‘Yar fres-sh 
But be the pilchard’s descent what those having authority 
may agree upon, the industry that his catching, drying, salt- 
ing, packing and exporting affords to the fishermen of those 
coasts which his fastidious tastes induce him 10 patronize, is 
a very great and profitable one, Indeed it is almost solely 
in one or other of the various items which the industry in- 
volves that the many fishing villages from Land’s End to 
Torquay find the means of livelihood. All who baye wan- 
dered in this out of the way limb of England will remember 
the quaint little cluster of houses which here and there peep 
from among the rocks of each bay and cove in this much 
Seldom do they boast more than a dozen 
: 
the air was thick with orders, which no one tut their p 
ticular progenitor dreamt of obeying, all being far too occ 
pied with their own part of the business, St. Peter, as if 
patron saint of the fishermen, must—and 1 write it modest. 
—have fingered his golden keys to see the way his followe 
struggled, and panted, and labored to push the unwiel¢ 
pilcher boats into the water. For the pilcher boat is no Tigh) 
toy. Itis more like the sort of thing which Cmsar well 
Briton-fishing in than an ordinary boat, and has nearly 2! 
much beam as length. Tt will hold an indefinite amount @ 
men, oars, masts, sails, nets, and with good luck, pilchards. 
and altogether is quite an unique craft. As soon as one 4 | 
these had been successfully launched, we hastily piled i 
such necessaries as were not already aboard, and then hurtie 
off to another. There were four altogether to be run dow 
the shelying beach into the water, and a variety of odds an: 
ends to be placed in each, but from the moment when thi 
warning shout of the watchman on the cliff had broken i 
upon our morning gossip to the time when everything wa: 
prepared for the start barely half an hour had elapsed 
Directly things were ship-shape, the sailors got into the boats 
and as each crew secined to have been previously arrangediyy 
there was no time lost over this proceeding. Seeing that mj 
fayorite sailor—a bluff old subject of Neptune, who h 
lived all his life upon seaweed and pilchards, or his fa 
could never have matched the ruddy glow of his trousers — 
was skipper of the “‘leader” boat, T tumbled in with him ands 
his crew, and the nets, barrels, oars, and general assortment 
of animate and inanimate objects which made a delightfully 
chaotic mosaic at the bottom of the boat. | 
All was now ready, and so, with a long shove and a strough 
shove and a shove all together, we pushed ourselves off from 
the shore and got under weigh. But what wind there was 
hardly made itself felt in this landlocked bay, only lazily 
flapping the sail set forward with tantalizing weaknéss, and 
so we had mainly to trust to our oars. These we pulled withy 
as much vigor as though the ghosts of galley masters were 
threatening us, and with their help soon reached the open 
sea, where ‘‘a wind that’ followed fast” eased our labo: 
somewhat, Hither and thither the watchman on the cli 
pointed our course with the leafy branch of a tree as the 
school of pilchards changed their playing ground, and a 
wearisome dance those finny players kept us at, Fora long 
time we rowed and sailed about trying to reach the movin, 
shoal, which as yet we had never sighted, and the position of 
which we could only judge by the watchman’s faithful 
branch; but at lengtha shout from one of the boats announ 
that the occupiers had found its whereabouts, With re 
newed energy the boats now pushed forward in the direction 
indicated, and it was not long before all could see; still som 
half mile ahead of us, the dark cloud-like shadow on th 
water which told where the pilchards were playing. _ ’ 
And now as we neared the school much bustle was visible 
in all the boats, where everything was being made ready for 
a big take. Orders were shouted across the water and th 7 
men became more and more business-like and cool, although! 
intensely excited by the sight of the broken water ahead 
where the fishes were disporting themselves, or perhaps 
ing chased by other fish, or may be waging war uponey, 
smaller fry in the battle of survival of the fittest. In the 
capacity of ‘‘leader” the duty of commencing proceedings 
deyolyed on us, and we were, therefore, allowed, on apa 
proaching the shoal, to sail ahead of the other boats, two ofe 
which brought to, while the third followed us to be of ass 
ance in case of need. Slipping gently overboard one endo 
the enormous net which we carried, to which was attacl 
a buoy, we sailed along the outskirts of the school, letti 
trail out behind us the coils of net which were stowed aw 
in the bottom of the boat and ran out over a wheel in the 
stern. These pilchard nets are often of extraordinary length 
though of no very great depth, and are necessarily made 
very strong, while at the same time they have to be con 
structed of the most delicate materials, and with extremelyay 
small meshes. Such a net is, of course, a very expensive 
article in the outfit of a pilchard fishing village, and I hayew 
been told that four or fiye thousand dollars is by no mean 
an unusual price for one, 
But while we are making this digression, the buoy we hae 
left in our wake has been picked up by one of the stationary | 
boats, and we have sailed round three-quarters of the shoalyy 
dropping the fateful net over our course. But at this crisiay» 
the net gives out. We could almost have reached the ot 
end, but a miss being as good as a mile, the other boat hai 
to be called ulongside, and the task of finishing the circle in 
trusted to it. With its own net attached to ours, the re 
mainder of the trap is soon laid down, and the two ends joinet 
at the original starting point. Thereis thus completeda 
wide circumference of net, buoyed here and there to h 
it up to the surface, and sinking down to a depth of sey 
yards. Inside this is playing the main portion of the school, 
all unsuspecting the perfidy of man and ‘silliness of li i) 
fishes.” But their ignorance is not permitted to remain) 
bliss Jong, for our boat, as the biggest beamed one, and there | 
fore capable of withstanding the strain better, commences tof 
gather In the ends of the net which imprisons them. Hf 
After a while the water grows rapidly more mottle d, iy 
freckled, and splashed as the alarmed fish begin to show | 
they are aware of the treachery around them, and at the sight i 
of this the other boats join us in gathering in the heayy bur- 
den. What a time it is as the meshes, laden with fish, — 
are dragged in over the sides oi the boats! We wade in ~ 
water, pilchards, seaweed, nets and the many strange things 
which live on the surface of the sea. We have apparently 
turned into finny monsters of the deep, like those we perse- 
cute, and from head to foot are beflaked with the scales of © 
our victims. The boats, which but a short time since had 
looked like tarry blots upon the bright sea, now sparkle and if 
glisten with their freights, and seem to be loaded to the gue 
nel with mercury, which runs in streamlets into every cranny 
as the excited sailors draw in the full nets. What jovial 
congratulations as the last bend is taken in, and the depth 
to which the boats have sunk in the water tells to all t 
yalue of the catch. ! 
We have soon freed the boats from one another and ad 
justed their cargoes, and then, with much shouting from 
oat to boat, make our ladened way back to the little portin Wj 
the cliff-sheltered bay. The village wives and all who were 
left have turned out on the beach to welcome us, for they 
have long since learned the news of our success from the 
watchman on the hill, and when the boats haye been rug 
ashore and their crews have Junded there is a wild scene of | 
triumph and pent-up jubilation. All the anxieties of the 
little village are temporarily ended, and the careful watching 
of the sea rewarded with the certainty that now they ha 
in abundance food, a marketable commodity, and the where 
Withal to ply the various trades connected with the pilchard 
industry, For not alone is the pilehard pete to the 
4 er ‘fie 
