[A Silver Harvest.]
SHOOTING SEINE-NET.
Cornish pilchards are, no doubt, sufficiently well known to create some interest in the method by which they are caught. Some years back the fisheries were worked almost entirely by the "seine" net system, and had developed into a most flourishing industry; but, at present, owing principally to the large increase of drift-net boats which, in their more regular expeditions, tend to break up the "schools" or "shoals," the old picturesque way of catching them by the "seine" boats is more or less falling into desuetude. The glory and excitement of the pilchard fishing belongs, however, to the seine-net almost exclusively. For weeks the cliffs are patrolled by anxious watchers, and when once the red streak in the water shows to the practised eye the "school" slowly moving, the cry "heva" or "hubba" is heard shouted from one to another, and every man, woman, and child rushes to the beach. A volunteer colonel the writer once met touring about Cornwall with a camera had skilfully arranged a characteristic group of fishermen and lasses in a disused fish-cellar, and had carefully had an artistic background of nets, lobster-pots, &c., built up after some hours of trouble and difficulty, when, just as he was about to raise the cap, a tap at the little window, a cry of "hubba," and his group flew off like lightning out of the place. He never got them again. For many weeks they were all busy with the pilchards.
Another visitor, not knowing the colloquial terms of the fisher-folk, was alarmed to hear his landlady, in great excitement, shout to a neighbour, "Shot at Cadgwith," and anxiously inquired whether anyone was hurt or killed. Though the fishing villages as a rule are in communication only through coaches, or more often carts, the news of the first catch rapidly flies; naturally each place anticipating the advent of the pilchards at any moment.
LAUNCHING THE TUCK-BOAT.
Many of the fishermen are almost practised athletes. Down a long "way" or "slip" the big seine boat is shot, the men hanging on, pushing, or clambering on as the boat is launched into the sea. In a second the big heavy oars are shipped, every man in his place, and pulling with all his strength for the "shoal," guided by the "huer" who, on the top of the cliff, directs them by waving two branches of furze-bush in the direction required. The turn-out of a metropolitan fire-engine is not accomplished more expeditiously. This work, as may be supposed, is very arduous, and on many parts of the coast the manual labour is superseded by steam seine-boats, which are constantly kept at sea on the look-out, the men being paid weekly wages by the proprietors. Occasionally the "school" is missed, and sometimes, in the difficulty of manœvering the heavy boats in a comparatively rough sea, a small portion only is secured. Many tries have often to be made, the fish sometimes turning out too young and small, and, though these latter are valuable to the sardine factories, many of which are established in Cornwall, the cost of packing and drawing the fish over many miles of rough country prevents it being worth the labour and trouble. And the roads in some places, say, for instance, the way down to Sennen Cove, Lands End, are most decidedly rough, the writer having once seen a poor old blind man, who perambulated the country with a donkey-cart and apples, once literally hung up on a huge boulder of rock in the middle of the road. The fish once reached, the net is thrown into the sea and a complete circle made round them, the net righting itself in the water by the leads at the bottom and the corks at the top. Then comes the "tuck-boat," often launched by women and children, carrying a smaller net, which is fastened inside the bigger "seine," and partly under the fish, by means of which, by gradually lessening the circle, the precious catch is forced to the surface. Large heavy boats, characteristically called "loaders," are used to convey the fish to the shore. Stalwart young men dip the "tuck-basket" into the shoal of live fish, the water naturally draining out when it is raised to the surface, while the pilchards are stowed in the "loader" by large wooden shovels, to the accompaniment of the screams of thousands of sea-gulls.