Of course the natives manage at these times to get fairly well provided with fish. The children are very busy picking up the stray pilchards, and the stray ones getting scarce, an apparently accidental stumble on the rough stones may upset a large creel full, which is not worth gathering up when fish is plentiful. [Illustration: DIPPING FOR PILCHARDS.] If large catches, or perhaps two or three catches fill the cellars, an interesting sight is to see the fish packed on the ground by the women and children, salt being plentifully used, of course, and the heads placed outwards. The row of carefully arranged pilchards is then thatched over and left to pickle for about a month. The pay is pretty good for this work, the children even getting 3d. per hour. The pile is then undone, the fish packed with great care in barrels, and by means of a long lever with a heavy stone hooked on at the end, pressed down tightly. It is then ready for the market. The inland villagers are good customers for pilchards, and, indeed, for all sorts of fish, conger and mackerel being especial favourites with all. They are usually supplied by the country dealers called "jowters," though how the word arose is uncertain; but the biggest market is Italy, several Italians being permanently established in Cornwall in the business. It might be supposed that the fishermen themselves would care but little for fish, but experience shows that few people are so particularly fond of it. We have often heard the natives declare that a bit of fresh or salted fish was better at any time than meat, roast or boiled. In the winter, when unable to go to sea, the storms and gales preventing the men from doing anything for a livelihood, the salted pilchard is the staple article of food. Served with a boiled potato it makes a savoury enough dish, though I think, perhaps, it needs an acquired taste on behalf of the town dwellers to enjoy it thoroughly. Most of the fishermen have their plot of land, and in their intervals of enforced leisure are assiduous gardeners, cultivating generally sufficient potatoes to last the winter. [Illustration: PACKING.] The oil which is pressed out of the fish is drained by little gutters into a small well, and although after some lapse of time it becomes anything but odorous, or even agreeable to the view, it is very valuable to the men for dressing their boots, &c., which become so hardened by the sea-water. Many of the fishermen in days gone by have made a considerable lot of money by Cornish pilchards. In some of the fishing villages it is not at all uncommon for the men to have built their own cottages out of their earnings and to have put a little by besides. Formerly, too, the "schools" came along as early as August, but now they are seldom seen until October. No satisfactory reason either for their present apparent scarcity or the change of the time of their appearance can be given, the fishermen themselves being at a loss for an explanation.