The boats, each of about fifteen tons burden, carry a large, long seine net, kept up by corks and down by lead. The grand object in the fishery, guided by the “huer” on the cliffs ashore, is to drive the shoals into shallow waters and bays.
“The grand object is now to enclose the entire shoal. The leads sink one side of the net perpendicularly to the bottom, the corks buoy the other to the surface of the water. When it has been taken all round the shoal, the two extremities are made fast, and the fish are imprisoned within an oblong barrier of netting. The art is now to let as few of the pilchards escape as possible while the process is being completed. Whenever the ‘huer’ observes that they are startled, and separating at any particular point, he waves his bush, and thither the boat is steered, and there the net is shot at once; the fish are thus headed and thwarted in every direction with extraordinary address and skill. This labour completed, the silence of intense expectation that has hitherto prevailed is broken, there is a shout of joy on all sides—the shoal is secured.” The seine is now regarded as a great reservoir of fish, and may remain in the water for a week or more. The pilchards are collected from it in a smaller net known as the “tuck.” When this net has travelled round the whole circuit of the seine, everything is prepared for the great event—hauling the fish to the surface.
“Now all is excitement on sea and shore; every little boat in the place puts off crammed with idle spectators; boys shout, dogs bark, and the shrill voices of the former are joined by the deep voices of the ‘seiners.’ There they stand, six or eight stalwart, sunburnt fellows, ranged in a row in the seine-boat, hauling with all their might at the ‘tuck’-net, and roaring out the nautical ‘Yo, heave ho!’ in chorus. Higher and higher rises the net; louder and louder shout the boys and the idlers; the ‘huer,’ so calm and collected hitherto, loses his self-possession, and waves his cap triumphantly. ‘Hooray! hooray! Yoy—hoy, hoy! Pull away, boys! Up she comes! Here they are!’ The water boils and eddies; the ‘tuck’-net rises to the surface; one teeming, convulsed mass of shining, glancing, silvery scales, one compact mass of thousands of fish, each one of which is madly striving to escape, appears in an instant. Boats as large as barges now pull up in hot haste all round the nets, baskets are produced by dozens, the fish are dipped up in them, and shot out, like coals out of a sack, into the boats. Presently the men are ankle-deep in pilchards; they jump upon the benches, and work on till the boats can hold no more. They are almost gunwale under before they leave for the shore.” At the little fishing cove of Trereen, Mr. Wilkie Collins tells us, 600 hogsheads, each of 2,400 fish and upwards, were taken in little more than a week.
The sardine also comes under the Clupedæ family. It derives its commercial name from Sardinia, but is found all over the Mediterranean, the coast of Brittany, &c. On the latter coast the fish are caught in floating nets, and arranged in osier baskets, layer after layer, each boat returning to port when it has secured 25,000.
Space will not permit of more than a passing notice to the flat-fish, or Pleuronectidæ. These fish swim by means of a caudal fin, and they can ascend or descend in the water readily, but they cannot turn to right or left with the same facility as other fish. Most flat-fish, soles, turbot, flounders, and plaice, are taken by trawl nets. Some of the larger are speared.
The holibut (or halibut) is a fish which attains a great size, sometimes as much as seven feet in length, and weighing 300 pounds. One brought to Edinburgh measured seven-and-a-half feet in length by three feet in breadth; it weighed 320 pounds. In Norway and Greenland a long cord, from which branch thirty or so smaller cords, each furnished with a barbed hook, is employed for their capture. The main cord is attached to floating planks, which indicate the place where it is let down.
The Gadidæ family includes some most important fish, commercially considered, such as the whiting, haddock, and cod, the general form and peculiarities of which are familiar to all.
The cod fish is a most voracious feeder, and is provided with a vast stomach; it eats molluscs, crabs, and small fish, and has been known even to swallow pieces of wood. It is essentially a sea fish, and is never seen in rivers. From the days of John Cabot, the English, French, Dutch, and Americans have prosecuted the great fisheries on the banks of Newfoundland; 2,000 English vessels, manned by 32,000 seamen, are employed in the pursuit. The modern cod-smack is clipper-built, has large tank wells for carrying the fish alive, and costs about £1,500. The fish is taken in nets, or by line. Bertram tells us that each man has a line of fifty fathoms in length, and attached to this are a hundred hooks, baited with mussels, pieces of herring, or whiting. “On arriving at the fishing ground, the fishermen heave overboard a cork buoy, with a flagstaff about six feet in height attached to it. The buoy is kept stationary by a line, called the ‘pow end,’ reaching to the bottom of the water, where it is held by a stone or grapnel fastened to the lower end. To the ‘pow end’ is also fastened the fishing-line, which is then paid out as fast as the boat sails, which may be from four to five knots an hour. Should the wind be unfavourable for the direction in which the crew wish to set the line, they use the oars. When the line, or ‘taes,’ is all out, the end is dropped, and the boat returns to the buoy. The ‘pow’ line is hauled up with the anchor and fishing-line attached to it. The fishermen then haul in the line, with the fish attached to it. Eight hundred fish might be, and often have been, taken by eight men in a few hours by this operation; but many fishermen say now that they consider themselves fortunate when they get a fish on every fifth hook on an eight-lined ‘taes’ line.” On our own coasts the cod is principally taken by deep-sea lines, with many shorter lines depending from them armed with large hooks. One man has in ten hours taken 400, and eight men have taken eighty score in one day off the Doggerbank. The Norfolk and Lincoln coasts afford a large supply; the fish taken is stowed in well-boats, and brought to Gravesend, whence they are transhipped into market boats and sent to Billingsgate. The store-boats with their wells, through which the water circulates, cannot come higher, as the fresh water of the Thames, and possibly some of that which is not too fresh, would kill the fish.
THE COD (Morrhua vulgaris).