PTI.CHAKT). 
93 
very greatly after the month of September. The oil obtained 
from the Pilchard has been found to contain a larger amount 
of greasy matter than that from any other kind of fish; and is 
of much value in some sorts of mechanical employments. This 
practice of obtaining the oil by means of simple pressure is 
referred to by the county historian Carew, as being in his day 
a comparatively modern invention; and the common belief is 
that at a remote date the fish intended for exportation were 
preserved by being smoked; of which the name of fumado, by 
which they are now known, is a proof, for this word is only 
applied to Pilchards that are sent to a foreign market. The 
fish prepared for use at home are deprived of their heads and 
entrails, and thus kept in salt or brine; in which condition 
they form the winter stock of almost every family in the middle 
and lower condition of life. 
In a long series of years the average quantity of fumadoes 
sent abroad yearly may be thirty thousand hogsheads; but on 
some rare occasions it has much exceeded this, and has amounted 
to sixty thousand; but on the other hand, in the years 1821 
and 1822, the quantity respectively was little above two thou- 
sand and five thousand hogsheads. It is the drift-net fishery 
which for the most part supplies the consumers of Pilchards in 
our own country; and the amount caught by them may perhaps 
be equal to what is taken in seans. In the latter the largest 
amount caught at one time has amounted to three thousand five 
hundred hogsheads; which was at St. Ives in the month of 
November; but at the same place ten thousand hogsheads have 
been enclosed in the seans in one day, although not immediately 
brought to land. As an hogshead contains from two thousand 
five hundred of these fishes, to perhaps thi-ee thousand, it thus 
happens that the enormous multitude of thirty millions of living 
creatures have been secured at once from the ocean for human 
sustenance. From thirty to forty thousand is regarded as a 
favourable capture by drift-nets, of not very frequent occurrence; 
but the more frequent capture of a smaller number affords a 
sufficient remuneration to the fishermen. 
This lengthened notice of a popular and important fishery 
might have been still more extended; but for other particulars 
we refer to several communications that are to be found in the 
Reports of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society, and the 
