INDUSTRIES another net called the ' tuck-net ' is passed under the fish inside the seine itself, and the fish are ' lifted bodily to the surface and so taken into the boats. At all the chief places of the pilchard seine fishery the local fishing ground is divided by shore marks into regular areas or ' stems,' and the boats take up their stations on these ' stems ' in regular rotation. When a school of fish comes into the ' stem ' the boat whose turn it then happens to be has the first right to shoot her net. This custom, intended to prevent quarrelling amongst the seiners, was of great service in the days when there were large numbers of pilchard seines in use, and is enforced at St. Ives by an Act of Parliament. 1 The seine fishery for pilchards has declined very largely in the last twenty or thirty years, and there are now fewer boats engaged in the whole county than there formerly were at St. Ives alone. The total now is about forty-four, of which ten are at St. Ives, twelve at Cadgwith and Mullion on either side of the Lizard, the only four in Mount's Bay are at Porthleven, there are nine in the coves near Falmouth, and single ones at Penberth, Porthgwarra, and New- quay, and six at Sennen, whose fishing ground is in Whitsand Bay, near the Land's End. 2 The fish intended for export were until recently prepared by a method known as ' bulk- ing,' which had been used for more than 300 years ; they were placed in the fish cellars in layers with alternate layers of salt, and pressed with heavy weights until the oil and blood were driven out, which result was attained in two or three weeks. The fish were then taken out and washed and packed in hogsheads and again pressed. For some years now it has become the more usual practice to put the fish with salt into large tanks and leave them for some two or three weeks until they are thoroughly pickled, instead of * bulking,' and to press them with screw presses when they are in ths hogsheads. The oil, of which the pilchard contains an enormous quantity in proportion to its size, is collected in tanks, and finds a steady sale in English markets. The fish, when packed in this manner, are called locally 'fermades' (fumados), a name derived from the fact that at one time they were smoked ; the term still survives, although that method of curing went out of use more than 300 years ago. R. Carew, 3 after describing the custom of 'bulking,' which was the same in his time (1602) as it is now, adds ' those that serve for the hotter Countries of Spaine and Italic they used at first to fume by hanging them up on long sticks one by one in a house built for the nonce, and there drying them with the smoake of a soft and con- 1 4 & 5 Vic. c. 57. ' Mr. Pezzack's Report.
- Carew, Surv. ofCornvi.
tinuall fire, from whence they purchased the name of fumados ; but now, though the terme still remaine, that trade is given over . . . . ' and the fish were packed in hogsheads just as they are to-day. The herring is an inhabitant of the cold water, and is not found off the coast of Cornwall in such quantities as in the northern and eastern waters of England. In fact Cornwall lies across the extreme southern limit of the range of this fish so exactly, that whereas there is a regular herring fishery from the ports on the north coast, especially Port Isaac and St. Ives in the late autumn, it is only occasionally that they are taken in any quantity on the south coast. It is curious that the southern limit of the range of the herring is so closely identified with the northern limit of the range of the warm water pilchard. St. Ives is the chief centre of the Cornish herring fishery, and there the average annual export amounts to about 2,000 tons, or perhaps six millions of fish. They are caught exclusively in drift nets, and usually in the larger boats, but in some seasons the fish are so near the shore that open boats and large gigs can be used. The fish are sent to English markets by rail. The common shellfish, crab, lobster, and crayfish, are caught all round the coast, and the fishing employs about 370 boats, the majority of which (about 250) are in the ports east of the Lizard on the south coast, the largest number being at Mevagissey. This distribution of the fleet is probably due not to any absence of the fish from the western or northern waters, but to the fact that the sea to the east of the Lizard is more sheltered, and not so continuously troubled by the great seas and strong tides which make fishing in small open boats so precarious off the cliffs and headlands of the south-western and northern shores. Of late years a considerable number of French fishing boats from the neigh- bourhood of Brest have been employed in taking shellfish in the deep waters off" the coast, especially between the Land's End and the isles of Scilly, with success. These are decked boats of about twenty or thirty tons, while the local boats are usually open boats of about twenty-five feet in length. The fish are caught in crabpots, those made of withy being most commonly used. The season is confined to the summer months. The grey mullet has a habit of congregating in an enormous school at Whitsand Bay, by the Land's End, and sometimes in the smaller bights of the coast between that and St. Ives, in the winter months. The fish are often seen lying for many days in some inaccessible place under the cliffs, and the men wait until the school moves into shoaler water over a sandy bottom where they can shoot a seine. A catch when it occurs is a great boon to the local fishermen, as the fish are taken in many thousands and sell for as much as lod. or is. each at the boat side, and 585 74
