254 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
deep at the poles or end, the first being 11 fathoms and the 
second 8. The seine is contracted to form a bunt or bag, to 
tuck the net, so as to get the fish in a smaller space. A 
seine net and boats complete cost about £400; and in 1827 it 
was calculated that the capital directly invested in the pilchard 
fishery was £441,215. In that year there were in Cornwall 186 
seines employed, and 130 not employed; and the total number of 
persons engaged in the fishery was 10,521, of whom 6,350 were 
employed on shore, and 1,600 in 368 drift-boats. In the present 
year (1886) there are at St. Ives 276 seines, and in Mount’s Bay 
30; but, by agreement between the owners, only an eighth part 
are fishing. In 1796 65,000 hogsheads of pilchards were taken ; 
while between 1815 and 1877 no less than 1,027,415 hogsheads 
were cured and exported, the price averaging £3 per hogshead, or 
a total of £3,082,345. The largest “cure” was in 1871—45,682 
hogsheads—and the least in 1829—700. Most of these fish were 
caught by the Seine on different parts of the Cornish coast, 
chiefly at St. Ives, in October and November. Since 1877 the 
quantities have greatly fallen off, and seining east of the Lizard 
has nearly died out. The greatest quantity taken was 14,848 
hogsheads, in 1884, of which all, except 2,000 hogsheads, were 
caught by Drift Nets. During the seven years the price varied 
between 36s. and 80s. per hogshead, on shore. The pilchard 
fishery in Devon is, comparatively speaking, now unimportant, 
the few stations— Bigbury Bay, Burr Island, Start Bay, and 
Teignmouth—having been unfortunate for many years. 
Trawling is more interesting to us, as Devonshire men, than 
any other kind of fishing in these days, as it is more extensively 
carried on by our own county fishermen than any other method, 
has been increasing more steadily than the rest, and is of more 
modern development. 
It is generally supposed to have been begun about 150 years 
ago; and, so far as its earliest adoption in Great Britain, it is 
conceded that Devonshire men were the first to practise it, and 
were the pioneers in prosecuting its operations in the North Sea, 
eventually settling at Ramsgate, Hull, Grimsby, and Lowestoft. 
Less than fifty years ago the number of trawling vessels fishing 
in the North Sea was very small; but during the last twenty 
years Trawling has increased a hundredfold; and since the intro- 
