The Argosy — page 301: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

278 Something About Pilchards. a farmer’s large cart loaded with these silvery fish. Our good- natured landlady, the wife of a retired coast-guardsman, secured for us a pennyworth for breakfast, and cooked them to perfection. The pilchard is a very oily fish, and when eaten fresh is best fried, requiring nothing but its own fat to fry it in. Fresh, or white herrings, as they are called on the Norfolk coast, should be boiled, and fresh sprats done on a gridiron. ll these three sorts of fish, to be eaten in perfection, ought to be cooked within an hour or two after they are caught. ‘They will not keep twenty-four hours as fresh fish, and their flavour is destroyed by packing. However cooked, they should be sent to table quite hot, and touched with nothing but a silver knife and fork. Many persons find the sharp bones of these delicious fish very troublesome, but nothing is easier than to draw out every bone, and leave the flesh perfectly free. Make a small incision along the back of the fish; then, with the fork at the tail, draw out the backbone to the head; and in this way not only the backbone but all the fine lateral bones will be drawn out, and the flesh left entirely free. From Penzance we made our way to the Lizard and the Land’s End, and thence by rail to Newquay, the very centre of the pilchard fisheries. The place itself, independently of its importance as a fish- ing station, is well worthy of a visit. It is charmingly situated at the head of two beautiful bays, with splendid, hard sands at low water, skirted by high rocky cliffs in which are some most curious caverns. It is with the pilchard fishing, however, that we are at present con- cerned. In the pretty little tidal port about the centre of the place, at the time of our visit, the pilchard boats were lying, all properly equipped and ready at any moment to put to sea. It should be mentioned that there are two modes of catching pilchards : the drift net and the seine. The former is used chiefly on the south coast, where the fish are not so plentiful, and the latter on the north-west, where the largest shoals are to be met with. The drift net is carried about by the tide, and catches such fish as become entangled in its meshes. ‘The seine encircles an entire shoal, and, unless any accident occurs, captures the whole. As many as 5,000 hogsheads of pilchards have in this way been taken at one time. Seine fishing is carried on by companies, each company owning three boats—the Seine boat, thirty-seven feet long; the ‘ Vollier,” or follower as it is named, about the same size; and another small boat called a ‘‘ Larker.” ‘The expenses of outfit are very large ; as much, we were told, as 41,500 a company. There are several of these companies or “ concerns” in Newquay alone, and the fishing is carried out under rules and regulations in force among them. Each company in the season has its allotted station, so that when a shoal, or “school,” which is the local name, appears, all CORMICLIOO KS. COR