FISHERY. 
73G 
dangerous and fatiguing employ, by reason 
of the greatness and frequency of the gales 
in these seas, and in such gales are the most 
successful captures ; but by the providence 
of Heaven, the fishers are seldom lost, and 
what is wonderful, few are visited with ill- 
ness. They go out well prepared, with a 
warm great coat, boots, and skin aprons, and 
a good provision of beef and spirits. The 
same good fortune attends the busses, which 
in the tempestuous season, and in the darkest 
nights, are continually shifting in these nar- 
row seas from harbour to harbour. Some- 
times 80 barrels of herrings are taken in a 
night by the boats of a single vessel. It once 
happened, in Loch-Slappan in Skie, that a 
buss of 80 tonsuuight have taken 200 barrels 
in one night, with 10,000 square yards of 
net ; but the master was obliged to desist, 
for want of a sufficient number of hands to 
preserve the capture. The herrings are pre- 
served by salting after the entrails are taken 
out. r I he last is an operation performed by 
the country people, who get three-halfpence 
per barrel for their trouble, and sometimes, 
even in the winter, can gain ftfteeen-pence 
a day. r l his employs both women and chil- 
dren ; but the salting is only entrusted to 
the crew of the busses. The fish are laid on 
their backs in the barrels, and layers of salt 
between them. The entrails are not lost, 
for they are boiled into an oil ; 8000 fish 
will yield ten gallons, valued at one shilling 
the gallon. A vessel of 80 tons takes out 
244 barrels of salt ; a drawback is allow- 
ed for each barrel used by the foreign or 
Irish exportation of the fish ; but there is a 
duty per barrel for the home-consump- 
tion, and the same for those sent to Ireland. 
The barrels are made of oak staves, chiefly 
from Virginia ; the hoops from several parts 
of our own island, and are either of oak, 
birch, hazel, or willow ; the last from Hol- 
land, liable to a duty. The barrels cost 
about 3s. each; they 'hold from 500 to 800 
fish, according to the size of the fish ; and 
are made to contain 32 gallons. The bar- 
rels are inspected by proper officers : a cooper 
examines if they are. statutable and good ; if 
faulty be destroys them, and obliges the 
maker to stand to the loss.” 
Herrings are cured either white, ( 2 . e. pick- 
led) or red. Of the first, those done by the 
Dutch are the most esteemed, being dis- 
tinguished into four sorts, according to their 
sizes ; and the best are those that are fat, 
fleshy, firm, and white, salted the same day 
they are taken with good salt and well bar- 
relled. The British-cured herrings are little 
inferior if not equal to the Dutch ; for, in 
spite of all their endeavours to conceal the 
secret, their method of curing, lasting, or 
cashing the herrings, has been discovered, 
and is as follows. After they have hauled in 
their nets, which they drag in the stern of 
their vessel backwards and forwards in tra- 
versing the coast, they throw them upon the 
ship’s deck, which is cleared of every thing 
for that purpose : the crew is separated into 
divisions, and each division has a peculiar 
task ; one part opens and guts the herrings, 
leaving the melts and roes ; another cures 
and salts them, by lining or rubbing their 
inside with salt; the next packs them, and 
between each row and division they sprinkle 
handfuls of salt ; lastly, the cooper puts the 
finishing hand to all/ by heading the casks 
very tight and stowing them in the hold. 
Red-her rings must lie 24 hours in the brine, 
inasmuch as they are to take all their salt 
there; and when they are taken out, they are 
spitted, that is, strung by the head on little 
wooden spits, and then hung in a chimney 
made for that purpose. After which, a 
fire of brush wood, which yields much 
smoke but no flame, being made under them, 
they remain there till sufficiently smoked 
and dried, and are afterwards barrelled up 
for keeping. 
Lobster-l'isliery. Lobsters are taken along 
the British channel, and on the coast of Nor- 
way, whence they are brought to London 
for sale ; and also in the frith of Edinburgh, 
and on the coast of Northumberland. See 
the article Cancer. By 10 and i 1 W. III. 
c. 24. no lobster is to be taken under eight 
inches in length, from the peak of the nose 
to the end of the middle fin of the tail ; and 
by 9 G. II. cap. 33. no lobsters are to be 
taken on the coast of Scotland from the first 
of June to the first of September. 
Alackrel-Fisherg. The mackrel is a sum- 
mer fish of passage, found in large shoals, in 
different parts of the ocean, not far north ; 
but especially on the French and English 
coasts. The fishing is usually in the months 
of April, May, and June, and even July, 
according to the place. See Scomber. 
They enter the English Channel in April, and 
proceed up to the straits of Dover as the 
summer advances ; so that by June they are 
on the coasts of Cornwall, Sussex, Nor- 
mandy, Picardy, &c. where the fish is most 
considerable. They are an exeelient food 
fresh ; and not to be despised when well 
prepared, pickled, and put up in barrels ; a 
method of preserving them chiefly used in 
Cornwall. The fish is taken in two ways ; 
either with a line or nets: the latter is the 
more considerable, and is usually performed 
in the night-time. The rules observed in 
the fishing for mackrel are much the same 
as those already mentioned in the fishery of 
herrings. 
There are two ways of pickling them : the 
first is, by opening and gutting them, and 
filling the belly with salt, crammed in as hard 
as possible with a stick; which done they 
range them in strata or rows, at the bottom 
of the vessel, strewing salt between the lay- 
ers. I 11 the second way, they put them im- 
mediately into tubs full of brine, made of 
fresh water and salt, and leave them to 
steep, till they have imbibed salt enough 
to make them keep ; after which they are 
taken out, and barrelled up, taking care to 
press them close down. Mackrel are not 
cured or exported as merchandize, except a 
few by the Yarmouth and Leostoff mer- 
chants, but are generally consumed at home ; 
especially in the city of London, and the 
sea-ports between the Thames and Yar- 
mouth east, and the Land’s-end of Cornwall 
west. 
Oyster-Fishery. This fishery is principally 
carried. on at Colchester in Essex; Fever- 
sham and Milton in Kent ; the Isle of Wight ; 
the Swales of the Medway ; and Tenby on 
the coast of Wales. From Feversham, and 
the adjacent parts, the Dutch have sometimes 
loaded a hundred large hoys with oysters in 
a y ear - They are also taken in large quan- 
tities near Portsmouth, and in all the creeks 
and rivers between Southampton and Chi- 
chester: many of- which are carried about by 
sea to London and to Colchester, to be fed 
in the pits about W avenhoe and other places. 
See Ostrea, 
Pilchard-Fishery. The chief pilchard-fish- 
eries are along the coasts of Dalmatia, on the 
coast ot Bretagne, and along the coasts of 
Cornwall and Devonshire. That of Dal- 
matia is very plentiful: that 011 the coasts 
of Bretagne employs annually about 300 
ships. Of the pilchard-fishery on the coast 
of Cornwall, the following account is given 
by Dr. Borlase : “ It employs a great num- 
ber of men on the sea, training them to naval 
affairs ; employs men, women, and children 
at land, in salting, pressing, washing, and 
cleaning; in making boats, nets, ropes, casks, 
and all the trades depending on their con- 
struction and sale. The poor are fed with 
the offals of the captures, the land with the 
1 c fuse of tile fish and salt ; the merchant finds 
the gains of commission and' honest com-' 
merce, the fisherman the gains of the fish. 
Ships are often freighted hither with salt, 
and into foreign countries with, the fish, carry- 
ing oft at the same time part of our tin. Of 
the usual produce of the great number of 
hogsheads exported eacli year for ten years 
from 1747 to 1756 inclusive, from the four 
ports of Fowey, Falmouth, Penzance, and St. 
Ives, jt appears that Fowey has exported 
yearly 1732 hogsheads; Falmouth 14 631 
hogsheads and two-thirds ; Penzance *and 
Mount’s-bay 12,149 hogsheads and one-third ; 
St. Ives 1282 hogsheads; in all amounting 
to 29,795 hogsheads. Every hogshead fur 
ten years last past, together with the bounty 
allowed for eacli hogshead exported, and the 
oil made out of each hogshead, lias amounted 
one year with another at an average, to the 
price ot 1/. 13s. od.\ so that the cash paid 
lor pilchards exported lias, at a medium an- 
nually amounted to the sum of 49,532 /. 10 s ” 
The numbers that are taken at one shooting 
out of the nets are amazingly great. Mr 
Pennant says, that Dr. Borlase assured him 
that on the 5th of October 1767, there were 
at one time inclosed in St. Ives’s bay 7000 
hogsheads, each hogshead containing 35 OOQ 
fish, in all 245 millions. * 
The pilchards naturally follow the ligl# 
which contributes much to the facility of the 
fishery : the season is from June to Septem- 
ber. On the coasts of France they make use 
of the roes of the cod-fish as a bait • which 
tin-own into the sea, makes them rise from 
the bottom, and run into the nets. On our 
coasts there are persons posted ashore, who 
spying by the colour of the water where the 
shoals are, make signs to the boats to a 0 
among them to cast their nets. When taken 
they are brought on shore to a warehouse’ 
where they are laid up in broad piles sun* 
Ported with backs and sides ; and as thev are 
piled, they salt them with bay-salt ; in which 
lying to soak for 30 or 40 days, they run out 
much blood, with dirty pickle and bittern • 
then they wash them clean in sea-water • and 
w hen dry, barrel and press them hard down 
to squeeze out the oil, which issues out at 
a hole in the bottom of the cask. 
Salmon-Fishery. The chief salmon-fish 
enes m Europe are in England, Scotland 
and Ireland, in the rivers and sea-coasts ad- 
joining to the river-mouths. The most dis 
tinguished for salmon in Scotland are the 
