The pilchard visits our coasts at all times, the leading fisheries being in Cornwall. Wilkie Collins has given us a lively and interesting picture of the “look‐out” for their approach and capture.(46) He says: “A stranger in Cornwall, taking his first walk along the cliffs in August, could not advance far without witnessing what would strike him as a very singular and even alarming phenomenon. He would see a man standing on the extreme edge of a precipice just over the sea, gesticulating in a very remarkable manner, with a bush in his hand, waving it to the right and to the left, brandishing it over his head, sweeping it past his feet; in short, acting the part of a maniac of the most dangerous description. It would add considerably to the stranger’s surprise if he were told that the insane individual before him was paid for flourishing the bush at the rate of a guinea a week.(47) And if he advanced a little, so as to obtain a nearer view of the madman, and observed a well‐manned boat below turning carefully to the right and left as the bush turned, his mystification would probably be complete, and his ideas as to the sanity of the inhabitants would be expressed with grievous doubt. “But a few words of explanation would make him alter his opinion. He would learn that the man was an important agent in the pilchard fishery of Cornwall, that he had just discovered a shoal swimming towards the land, and that the men in the boats were guided by his gesticulations alone in their arrangements for securing the fish on which so many depend for a livelihood.” These watchers are known locally as “huers.” They can easily detect the approach of the shoals, as they darken the water, producing the effect of a cloud. As they approach the fish may themselves be seen leaping and playing on the surface by hundreds; sometimes they are so abundant that the fish behind force those in front ashore, and they are taken by hand or in baskets. 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.