seine that renders their signalling of
great importance. The exact position of the fish must be ascertained
before the seine-nets are dropped to enclose them. The takes are
sometimes enormous, but seasons greatly vary, as the fish are governed
by laws of feeding whose operation we cannot easily trace. The average
annual taking of pilchards in Cornwall is estimated at 20,000
hogsheads. Gulls in countless numbers hover above the fishing-boats,
and swoop down for their share in the spoil; sometimes, however,
scared away by the more powerful gannets, with whom they dare not
dispute. At times the gulls are a distinct nuisance and something more
to the fisherman; they will snatch fish from his very boat, and the
constant loss must be very considerable; yet there is a superstitious
idea that the gull is the fisherman's friend--an idea in which we
might rejoice more if it led the men to be equally humane towards
other living creatures. The same mercy is by no means shown to the
gannet. But a more serious enemy of the men is the dogfish, who tear
their nets; and the fishers are taking their revenge by trying to
popularise this fish as an article of food, under the name of the
"flake." Besides the prevalent fishing with seines, there is much
drift-fishing from St. Ives, taking place at night; the boats being
dotted about within and outside the bay, with their headlights showing
like twinkling stars. The St. Ives men are not dependent on pilchards
only, happily for them; in winter their seines take many mullet, which
are mostly sent to Paris. The shore-seine used for these is
comparatively small; it is coiled and passed round the school, and the
two ends then drawn ashore. Here, as elsewhere, the men are usually
parcelled into companies--a kind of limited share-company; they take
turns in shooting the nets, and profits are shared. The control of
affairs by husband and wife is a different sort of share-company; the
wife is supreme mistress at home, but the man becomes "boss" as soon
as he gets his sea-boots on. Many mackerel are often brought to St.
Ives, and the men go still further afield after herring; but somehow
the catch of the pilchard seems the most distinctively local feature,
and the fish, once common much further east, is still an important
actuality to all the Land's End fishing ports. The typical Cornishman
has always been a fisher or a tin-miner; and both still flourish.

Picturesque and artistic St. Ives clusters nar