cleaned by women and children, and piled, with layers of salt, in large heaps in cellars or warehouses, where they remain for about a month; and being subsequently washed and thoroughly cleaned, are packed in hogsheads and subjected to pressure to extract the oil, about three gallons being yielded by each cask, when the fish are fat.

Great quantities of salted pilchards are sent to the Mediterranean, particularly to Naples and other parts of Italy, where they are largely consumed during Lent.

The number of hogsheads exported in 1851 was 26,743. The average for 10 years then stood at 23,446 hogsheads. Taking the number at 2500 fish to the hogshead, over 58,500,000 fish are caught annually, weighing 10,620 tons. About 5000 tons of salt are required to cure the catch for export, as there is but a small local consumption.

In the seven years ending 1863 the average annual export was only 13,757 hogsheads, but 1859 and 1860 were unprecedently bad years, the take being only 3500 hogsheads. The catch of 1863, on the contrary, was large, reaching 26,057 hogsheads. The shipments were larger at the close of the last century than they are now.

The total takes in Cornwall for the last three years. have been very small, namely, 7543 hogsheads in 1874, 7337 in 1875, and 6700 in 1876. In the last-named year only from 300 to 400 hogsheads were captured during the summer fishing, which ends on the 15th of September. These produced from 63s. to 67s. per hogshead. The main take was in the autumn and winter, and they went as high in price as 100s. per hogshead.

Italy will absorb, at fair prices, as much as 30,000 hogsheads annually, and depends upon Cornwall for the supply.

Pilchards arrive on the coasts of Devon and Cornwall

from June to September; sometimes they are caught about Christmas. A hogshead of pilchards, well cured and pressed, will hold 2500 to 3000 fish. The fresh fish weigh about 6 cwt., and the salt 3 cwt., but the weight of the hogsheads when cured and pressed is reduced to about 4 cwt., including the weight usually allowed for the cask, 28 lbs. Ten thousand pilchards make a last. A hogshead is supposed to consist of eight baskets of fish, and a basket contains about 400; but this number varies with the size of the fish. The fish are sold by the long hundred

-120.

A new industry has been started in Cornwall within a year or two, that of preserving small pilchards in oil in tins, after the manner of sardines. The seat of the company's operations is at Newlyn; a Frenchman conducts the operations. The Cornish sardines grow in favour and demand in London. Their flavour is considered quite equal to that of the foreign fish, and their nutritive qualities greater; while the extra size of the box, and the liberal way in which it is filled, all tend to commend the home product.

Large shoals of pilchards appeared off the coast of Cork and Kerry during the year 1876, principally from July to the end of October, some as late as November. They were in the greatest abundance off the Cork coast, and in many places came close in to the shore, and were captured by small seines drawn in upon the rocks. No efforts have yet been made in Ireland to cure for the continental markets, but some have been cured for home consumption on various parts of the coast. By degrees this fish is being regarded with more favour by the country people, and if they continue to frequent the Irish coasts as they have now done for some years, there is little doubt that a considerable trade will result.

Pilchards frequent the coasts of France and Spain in small numbers. The fishery of Nantes is carried on with great activity, and employs in the season 700 boats, manned by about 3000 seamen.

F

CHAPTER IV.

THE MACKEREL FISHERY.

The mackerel fishery on the coasts of Devon and Cornwall-The Lowestoft mackerel fishery-Statistics of fishery-American mackerel fishery-Mode of curing the fish.

THE mackerel (Scomber scombrus) is a much esteemed fish. The excitement on the Devon and Cornish coasts when

the shoals of this fish appear is very great. On their periodical arrivals, which is their custom in multitudes, for the purpose of feeding on a small fry very similar to whitebait, a practised eye will readily observe their manœuvres some distance from the shore, inasmuch as the moment they discover the food they love so well, their numbers and greedy propensities cause them to rush on their prey, which, endeavouring to escape from death, disturbs the water in large circles like a shower of hailstones dropping therein; indeed, we know of nothing more similar to compare it to. The moment one of these disturbed spots appears on the water, men are placed on the highest cliffs to look out, while the boats with their crews and nets prepared are launched and ready for action. The mackerel are sometimes seen at least a mile from shore, but the moment they attack the small bait, the latter fly towards the beach, till at times they approach within a hundred yards or nearer;

and the look-out man, who discovers them more readily from an eminence, shouts at the extent of his lungs, the boats are rapidly rowed around the feasting fish in a circle, the nets cast, and then being hauled towards the shore by men on land, some thousands of mackerel are enclosed in a large bag at the extremity of the net.

The demand for this fish is so great, that they are rarely to be met with in the towns in the west.

During 1869 the quantity of mackerel taken from Penzance and St. Ives by railway amounted to 71,959 pads, or 1617 tons; to May 1, 1870, the quantity conveyed from the same places amounted to 40,100 pads, or 871 tons.

The Lowestoft Mackerel Fishery.—The mackerel voyage on the east coast, even in its best days, was rarely remunerative either to owners or men; more frequently the amount realized barely paid charges for provisions, leaving nothing for wages, or wear and tear of boats and nets. The owners never expected much, and it was more to keep their men in employment, than in anticipation of profit, that this voyage was carried on for many years. In 1854 there were 20 mackerel boats out of Lowestoft ; in 1862 these had decreased to three, and their gross earnings averaged only £9 per boat.

In former years mackerel realized a large price; now the merchants have to compete with very fine fish caught off the Irish coast near Kinsale, and also with the immense numbers imported from Norway. These mackerel are packed in ice, and find a ready market amongst the manufacturing towns, as well as in London. In 1874 Yarmouth and Gorleston had a few boats engaged in this fishery for a short time in the autumn; i.e., nearly four months later than the mackerel voyage of former years commenced. In 1875, 3926 long hundred (120) were caught, the average