fishermen and sailors. "So true is this," says Pryce, "that in St. Ives and Lelant, during the fishing season, they are wholly employed upon the water, to the great hindrance of the adjacent mines; and when the fishing craft is laid up against the next season, the fishermen again become tinners, and dive for employment in the depths of the earth."[1] In the ordinary proceedings of the domestic fishery there is nothing peculiar. Owing to the great mildness of the climate in the winter season, the Cornish fisherman is exposed to comparatively few hardships, and being well clothed and well fed, and exposing himself to no unnecessary risks, his health or his life but rarely suffers from the ordinary course of his employments.
In the pilchard season his exertions are often very great, but as this almost always happens in summer, there is even then seldom any risk of health. I have formerly adverted to the quantities of this kind of fish caught in this district; it is proper, in this place, to give a brief account of this extensive and important fishery, as it is a species of employment which, both immediately and in its consequences, must exert an important influence over the health of the natives of the district.
The precise region whence the shoals of pilchards that visit this coast, come from, is unknown, but the fact that the coast of Cornwall is the part of Great Britain where they first make their appearance, and that they subsequently are to be found on the western coasts of France and Spain, seems to prove that their course is from the west. They commonly reach
- ↑ Mineralogia Cornubiansis, p. 35. Lond. 1778, fol.
