574 
THE OCEAN WORLD. 
him as a very singular and even alarming phenomenon. He would see 
a man standing on the extreme edge of a precipice just over the sea, 
gesticulating in a very remarkable manner, with a hush in his hand, 
waving it to the right and to the left, brandishing it over his head, 
sweeping it past his feet ; in short, acting the part apparently of a 
maniac of the most dangerous description. It would add considerably 
to the stranger’s surprise if he were told that the insane individual 
before him was paid for flourishing the bush at the rate of a guinea a 
week. And if he advanced a little, so as to obtain a nearer view of 
the madman, and observed a well-manned boat below turning carefully 
to the right and left, as the bush turned, his mystification would 
Fig. 384. The Pilchard (Clupea pilchardus). 
probably be complete, and his ideas as to the sanity of the inhabitants 
would bo expressed with grievous doubt. 
“ But a few words of explanation would make him alter his opinion. 
He would learn that the man was an important agent in the pilchard- 
fishery of Cornwall, that he had just discovered a shoal swimming 
towards the land, and that the men in the boats were guided by his 
gesticulations alone in their arrangements for securing the fish on 
which so many depend for a livelihood.’’ 
The pilchard, which is the sardine of commerce, where its place is 
not usurped by the sprat, is taken chiefly in the Channel, on the coasts 
of Brittany and Cornwall, and in the Mediterranean, and on the coast 
of Sardinia, whence its commercial name. In Brittany floating-nets are 
employed. The fishing is conducted in boats, each carrying five men ; 
