23 
Shortly after I saw a shoal of porpoises (a cetacean which 
loves the mackerel in an epicurean sense) come lumbering 
up from the south into the sand. When they came across 
the trail of the mackerel these latter were a good mile 
off on their way. The porpoises had no sooner got into 
their back water than they wheeled into their course and 
set off in full chase. In about three minutes they were 
in the midst of the mackerel, playing havoc, whilst the 
unfortunate mackerel were driving forward in one solid 
line of terror, making the water foam before them as they 
fled. 
Of the Pilchard I have a different tale to tell. It is a 
little fish of the “ herring ” family, generally about ten 
inches long, and rarely so much as half a pound in weight. 
It is very local in its habits, rarely occurring in numbers of 
any importance east of the Start Point, in Devonshire, on 
the South coast, and Trevose Head, in Cornwall, on the 
north. It is taken yearly as far east as the estuary of 
the Exe, and has been taken, and occasionally in large 
numbers, off Seaton, in Devonshire, at the mouth of the 
river Axe. Some years since a small shoal was taken off 
Folkestone.* 
It occurs in very large numbers off the south-west coast 
of Ireland, but there is no native fishery for it there, and as 
its season on that coast coincides with its season on ours, 
our people are too busy at home to look after it. It occurs, 
of course, off the French coasts as the sardine. And the 
Spaniards have a mode of curing it which altogether beats 
our English method, as may be seen by a comparison of our 
# There is also some record of the capture of a shoal at Harwich, 
and a fish supposed to be the pilchard occurs in Scotland under the 
name of the garvie herring, but practically its home in England is in 
Cornwall and mainly in West Cornwall. 
